Okay here is the first chapter introducing the team, sorry it took so long.
Like i said this chaper basically inroduces the team and hints what some storylines will be in later chapters.
Anyone wondering about the strange appearence of the monster in the prologue; I am theming the villians on the demons from the Ars Goetia. Look them up if you want to learn more.
Episode 1: A Night at the Theatre.
Chapter 1
Anyone who lived near the Mitsuhide residence would tell you it was a very interesting place. It was a well kept building with four bedrooms, plus a garden that had an impressive display of flowers with a small pond full of fish. Clearly that wasn't what the neighbors found so interesting. It was the people who lived there that were the cause of much gossip between its neighbors.
Obviously there was the young owner, Mitsuhide Keiji, who at 22 years old was not only incredibly young to own such a fine house, he also worked from home. What he did nobody knew, he was very private about such matters. But whatever it was it must have paid well for him to afford such a lovely home.
His housemates worried that he was becoming a bit of a shut in what with spending nearly the whole day every day at home. He only ever seemed to leave the house when he went shopping for groceries, or at least that was the only time his neighbors ever saw him. When he spoke to them he seemed cheerful enough, he even offered to help them with their own groceries.
Then there were his housemates; two beautiful young girls, one 19 years old and taking Art & Design at college whilst the other was 16 and therefore still attending school. At first the neighborhood assumed the three of them were siblings. But after one of them spoke to Keiji in the grocery store he told her they were his lodgers. When asked why they weren't with their family he told them it was because their families lived too far away from the school & college they wished to attend, so he lets them live with him since he's closer. When asked how much he charges them he admitted he lets them stay for free. How he could afford to do so only increased the gossip between his neighbors, some of them coming up with theories so scandalous that if Keiji had heard them he would blush.
The two girls themselves, Nouhime Saika and Shida Tsuruhime, were both extremely pretty but had very different personalities.
Tsuruhime, the youngest of the pair, could often be seen with a video camera in her hands filming just about anything that caught her attention. Sometimes Tsuruhime had her housemates and friends from school act out scenes from her screen play she wrote in the front garden or parts of town. She tended to be a bit bossy as she directed her cast, telling everyone it was going to be her "breakout movie" that would start her career in the film industry. Her neighbors found her to be a bit too noisy for their liking, often making her presence felt as soon as she left the front door.
Her short movies tended to be quite unusual as the theme always seemed to switch from romance, to horror and even sci-fi halfway through the plot. It was complete with bad looking costumes and incredibly bad acting. A winning masterpiece her movies were not. However her friends put up with it as they admired her determination to follow her dream.
Saika was a complete opposite to Tsuruhime. She would often be seen with her sketchbook tucked under her arm as she wondered around looking for something to draw. She was very good at capturing what she saw and putting it to paper, but quite often she would scrunch up her picture and throw it away as soon as she had finished it. She also had a habit of playing very questionable music on her portable radio as she sketched, stating that it helps her to concentrate on her drawings.
The two girls had a great friendship despite the differences in their age. On weekends they would often be seen dragging Keiji out of the house to spend the day with them, either to go shopping then to the cinema and then have a meal together.
Every once in awhile a third person would came to live at the house for a few days, a young boy who looked roughly the same age as Tsuruhime. He was very thin with a serious expression forever on his face. Out of all the people living in the Mitsuhide residence he was defiantly the most serious. When people would say hello he replied politely enough but quickly went on his way, leaving very little to be known about him. The neighbors didn't know who this boy was but Keiji had politely asked that they leave him be, saying he was having a hard time and enjoyed staying with them to make himself feel better. Why he felt better after visiting them also caused some more inappropriate rumors.
In truth the Mitsuhide household was far more interesting than its neighbors could have ever realized. But things started to get even more interesting for its tenants the evening following the attack at the museum.
It was coming up to 6 o'clock and Keiji was beginning to panic: the girls would be home soon and he still hadn't got the dinner ready. The only negative Keiji could see with working at home was that it always fell on him to cook the dinner. Of course he only had to remind himself of the incident when he had let Saika cook. It was not an experience anyone wanted to go through again, Saika included. Maybe during the holidays he would try to teach her but right now he had maybe half an hour to whip something together. He put the stove on and started to rummage around in the cupboards looking for ingredients.
Despite being so mature and in his twenties Keiji still had the appearance of an adolescent youth that should still be in school. He had big brown eyes and short dark hair that he had tried to style many different ways to make himself look older without any success. Looking so young really annoyed Keiji; he constantly had to show I.D. to the shopkeepers when buying alcohol he used for some of his cooking. He could have easily cooked something else without it but Keiji often liked to treat his housemates to various dishes from around the world, some of them required alcohol for the various sauces and marinades.
It was one of the reasons Keiji was glad he worked at home; he dreaded to imagine the kind of teasing he would get if he worked in an office or factory. But it was because of his work that Keiji was now so late making dinner. He also remembered he hadn't checked his phone to see if Yoshi was coming for dinner today. Keiji hadn't heard from his occasional third housemate for quite some time, a fact that was beginning to worry him.
Masamune Yoshiro, or Yoshi as Tsuruhime called him, had been with his mother in a car crash a year and a half ago. He had been lucky enough to escape with only a few cuts and bruises, but she had not been so lucky. The doctor's had said she died instantly whilst Yoshi had been unconscious; that nothing could have been done for her. Keiji thought Yoshiro felt differently, that somehow he blamed himself for not being able to save her. Of course Yoshi didn't know Keiji had found out and Keiji had no plans on telling him; it was up to Yoshi to decide if he wanted to tell them about his mother.
When the four of them had all first met Yoshi had been very serious and recluse. Sure Keiji spent most of his time at home but even he socialized with his neighbors and spoke to his old school friends on the internet. Yoshi on the other hand had seemed like he didn't even want to be in the same room as Keiji and the girls. If it hadn't been for the circumstances the four found themselves in Keiji was sure Yoshi would have remained a recluse to this day. But slowly Yoshi had started to open up to them, one day excepting their invitation to have dinner with them. After a few meals he even started smiling and joining in with their conversations. On the fourth month after the group had met he had even asked if he could sleep over. After that Yoshi spent nearly 3 days every week at their house, often sharing notes with Tsuruhime who attended the same school as Yoshi.
Keiji thought he should check his phone again to see if Yoshi was coming, but just as he fished it out of his pocket it started to ring. It was not a brand anyone would have recognized, but then again it was more than just a phone for Keiji. Its design was a dark flip open phone with a silver trim and red symbol on the lid. The symbol depicted a lion with another 2 heads: the head of a goat on its back & a serpents head for a tail. It was a Kimera. Keiji flipped open the phone and read the message.
"Come to the Theatre, it's an emergency!" The sender was listed as SS.
Without a second thought Keiji grabbed his coat and headed for the door, only to remember at the last minute he had left the stove on. Quickly turning it off he didn't bother to leave a message saying where he was going; the others might get there before he did. He quickly changed his shoes at the front door, grabbed his helmet and jumped onto his moped, heading out into the darkening night and completely unaware he had put his shoes on the wrong feet.
Tsuruhime and Saika often waited for each other at the bus stop that would take them home. Tonight though Tsuruhime was really tempted to catch the bus without Saika; she had been waiting for fifteen minutes with a strong chill in the air not helping her patience. Her school uniform wasn't really meant for the cold weather that had sprung out of nowhere this morning.
Tsuruhime took a bit more interest in her looks than Saika, sometimes going for style over efficiency. Her long dyed blonde hair was always flowing elegantly down her back, even now as the chilly wind continued to blow through it.
Saika meanwhile preferred to have her jet black hair tied in a ponytail, stating that her hair distracted her when she was working on an art projects or doodling in her sketch book. They also had very different tastes in clothes, Tsuruhime preferred designer clothes (when she could afford them), whilst Saika preferred more colorful, loose fitting and sometimes unusual clothes.
Saika suddenly appeared around the corner Tsuruhime had been waiting. She was running franticly towards her looking exhausted and rather cross. Today she was wearing a pair of jeans with a cream colored jumper.
When she reached Tsuruhime Saika took a second to catch her breath before saying "Tsuru-chan, didn't you get the message?" She held up her phone, almost identical to Keiji's but with a yellow Gurifin as the symbol on the cover.
"Oh crap!" shouted Tsuruhime, causing quite a few heads at the bus shelter to turn "I must have left it off after class!" Fishing it out of her bag she flipped the lid open, a symbol of a pink Hapi, a bird with a woman's face and flowing hair, depicted on it. She quickly opened it up and checked her messages. Unlike Keiji and Saika she had two messages.
The first read "Come to the Theatre, it's an emergency!" Whilst the second read "Tsuruhime, keep your phone on in future or I'll have you clean the whole theatre from top to bottom!"
"Oh! He's being sterner than usual today!" Tsuruhime pouted. Saika sighed and grabbed hold of Tsuruhime's hand, pulling her back the way she had come. Saika was only a little bit taller than Tsuruhime, and although she might be annoyed with her right now Saika was glad she had met her. The two had become friends almost instantly, acting like long lost sisters. They had quickly learned to work together during their training and worked the best as a combo.
Saika found it hard to believe they had all met nearly a year ago, brought together under strange circumstances. They had been told that for their family's safety it would be best to live far away from them, that way they would not be involved. For Saika and Tsuruhime it had taken a lot to convince their families to let them live with a young man they had never met.
But, upon meeting Keiji and exploring his house they realized he was a decent man, especially when he said there would be no charge for them living there. After that Saika's mother had even told her she wouldn't mind Saika getting into a relationship with Keiji, which had made her blush to no end.
However, the two girls still knew nothing of Keiji or Yoshi's parents. Keiji had said his parents were okay but a bit difficult to live with, though they had helped him buy his house. The others were really impressed with this, not many parents would buy a four roomed house for their child's first home. His parents must have been millionaires. But then Keiji seemed to be well off as well, constantly spoiling them all with luxurious meals he prepared himself. That was another thing that the girls were curious about: what exactly did Keiji do? He always waited until everyone was gone before starting 'work' and he refused to say what he actually did, almost like he was embarrassed about it. Even Yoshi admitted he was curious about it.
Yoshi refused to talk about his parents at all, even though he still lived with them most of the time, against their Sensei's advice. However the girls respected his privacy, though that didn't stop them from being curious about what his and Keiji's parents were actually like, discussing every scenario they could think of.
As Tsuruhime started to speed up Saika released her hand and the two raced down the street, hoping they were not the last ones there. They knew their Sensei was as good as his word about cleaning the whole theatre from top to bottom.
Yoshiro had been stood outside the front of his father's apartment when he received the message. He had been deciding whether or not he would be staying with his friends tonight or try spending some time with his Dad. The message however had made the choice for him. Hopefully his dad would think he had already said about staying at Keiji's, though he doubted his dad would care either way.
Before the accident his father had been a very different person. His father had been the owner of a small book shop when Yoshiro was born. As Yoshiro grew up his father would bring home a new children's book each week from the shop to read to him before he went to bed. Then when Yoshiro started at High School his dad started bringing home educational books, sometimes even helping him with his homework. He had been so lively before and took such an interest in everything Yoshiro did. With his mother the three of them spent every Sunday doing something together, whether going on a picnic or visiting the zoo but always together.
Then the accident happened.
Yoshiro could still remember it clearly. His mother had picked him up from school with him sat in the back so he could sort through all of his notes and coursework. They had come to an intersection and were waiting for the traffic light to change.
However, coming up behind them was a huge truck, its driver falling asleep at the wheel. It rammed into the back of their car, forcing them into the oncoming cars. All Yoshiro can remember after that was lots of flashing lights, loud noises and pain before passing out.
When he had come too his father had been there, tears running down his face. There had been a lot of tears those first few weeks. After the funeral Yoshiro's father shut himself away from all his friends and family. Many of them gave up trying to reach through to him after a few months. He had lost the book shop and the pair had needed to move into their current apartment, Mr. Masamune taking a job in a printing factory to cover rent and food.
He did not treat Yoshiro badly, but it seemed like he didn't really care about him anymore either. Usually after coming home from work he would cook a frozen dinner for himself and Yoshiro, and then sit silently in front of the TV silently for awhile before going to his sleeping compartment. On Sundays when Yoshiro was off his father would get up late, go to a bar and not come back till late at night when Yoshiro was usually asleep. This left Yoshiro alone with the grief of his mother's death and the feeling that he had lost his father too. He was sure his father blamed him for his wife's death, though he didn't have too: Yoshiro blamed himself too.
Yoshiro had become very quiet and anti social at school, his friends slowly excluding him from their activities just as his fathers had done.
But then, nearly one year ago today, something had happened that would slowly set Yoshiro on the path to recovery. He had been given a purpose, along with four other people that he would now call his closest friends. The amount of time he had been forced to spend with them, learning how to work together with them, had allowed him to come out of his shell and give him a purpose: to protect his father and his new friends. He still hadn't told them about his family, worrying that they may treat him differently. The last thing he wanted was for them to pity him.
Looking at the door to his father's apartment one last time Yoshiro sighed and turned around, placing the same kind of phone his friends carried back into his pocket. The symbol on his phone depicted a long serpent with flippers and a dorsal fin on its head. Yoshiro started running back down the corridor and into what would be the first of many new trials.
Well thats the end of chapter one. Sorry not much action happened yet but we will get to it soon, just need a bit of backstory on villians and the mysterious SS.
Please leave a review telling me what you think of the characters so far. I promise I will try to get next chapter up soon.
