** Author's note: My character's name is not my real name.**
I was in my house, holding the phone in my hand and sitting on the bed of my room. "Ashikabi...Sekirei... What do those words refer to?" I asked myself as my phone began to ring before the strange part came. My phone unlocked and answered itself and a FaceTime started.
"Those words, my dear boy, are VERY important!" an energetic middle aged funnyguy's voice answered at me vigorously.
He has white hair in a so-very-unreal haircut afro and was wearing glasses and an all white suit and tie with something short of a gigantic wizard's mantle cape. He smiled at me from the phone and I looked at him in curiousity. "How so, ?" I asked in a somewhat joking manner. 'Who is this guy, again?' I thought as I heard his immediate reply.
" 'Mr. Insanity'?" he asked with a very energetic laugh. "You are too funny, Nathan Felix. How was the move from America to my wonderful little playground?" he asked provocatively.
My reaction was sharp and my tongue was swift. "How do you know who I am? Who are you, cotton ball?" I interrogated.
Akitsu walked into the room with me and answered, "The director."
"Ah, number 7! How very fortunate that you were winged! And after so many attempts to do it right, as well." the cottonhead on my phone called out to her.
"Thank you, director." she calmly and icily replied to him.
"Hold on, hold on, what is this? Who are you, fluffyhead?!" I barked.
He laughed at me merrily. "I am Hiroto Minaka, the Game Master, the Director of the Sekirei Plan! And you are a player in my city soanning game!" he cried out pompously.
"What is-" I began.
"Get a good night's rest, young Ashikabi! You will need it!" he gave farewell as he hung up and my phone was back asleep.
I wanted to try and crush my phone in my hand, I was so angry and so agitated. But I kept as cool as I could, for I was never any good at angry displays of testosterone. 'This is going to be... undignnified, I can tell already.' I thought to myself as I saw Akitsu sitting with me on our bed. Our bed...
"Nathan, do you know what a Sekirei is?" she asked me.
"I don't really need to know the specifics, Akitsu. But I would like to know." I answered with a sigh of cooldown and a meek expression in my face.
Akitsu held up her hand and an algific wind and ionized ice gathered in her palm. "We are 108 in total, and I have control over ice and all cold. That is my power." she explained. "We all have different powers, some are better than others. I am number 7, so I am the seventh strongest in all."
I did little more than listen and look into her cool, yet frigorific eyes. It was comforting to hear her talk and explain to me now, and I was glad that she and I met. "What about when you kissed me? I'm an Ashikabi, what is that?" I asked.
"A human that a sekirei kisses becomes an Ashikabi, which is basically our master or leader, partner or lover." she explained more. "Upon having an Ashikabi, the sekirei you kiss will have a growth in power and will become 'winged'. Once we become winged, we must fight one another for the prize." she elaborated more for me.
"I see. So, it's like Highlander. The last one standing gets the prize." I paraphrased out loud.
Akitsu nodded to me. "Yes."
"Well, it's simple now." I declared as I held her hand in mine and smiled to her warmly. "We're going to have to win."
"It isn't going to be easy."
"You're number 7, out of 108. 6 and up will be our problem, not the other 101 sekireis." I assured. "We'll need some more Sekireis though, in order to at least help give us some good chances at victory."
She only blinked twice before she said "I know where we could find information about the other unwinged ones." and I yawned a bit.
"Akitsu... I will love to hear it tomorrow morning, I swear. But I'm actually pretty tired, okay?" I asked as I kissed her forehad. "I love you."
She blushed a bit and her eyes sparkled slightly. "You do?" she asked.
I smiled and giggled as I kissed her with tongue again. Her wings of light materialized and shone in the room, illuminating it before they died down. I stopped kissing her and answered, "Yeah, I do. I'm your Ashikabi now, I have to be able to take care of you and love you forever now... Is the winging of a sekirei a sacred pact to you?" I asked.
She nodded as I kissed her hand. "Then that also makes me your husband... well we'll have to also get married too." I slumped.
"... Nathan-!" she gasped as she kissed me again and lied with me on the bed. "I love you."
"And I love you, Akitsu..." I said as I fell asleep very quickly. Akitsu was holding me in our slumber, I could tell. I never knew much about women, but I did know that she would never let me go; either in one way or another.
Now it was a whole new connection to this woman, to Akitsu. I was in love with her, and I felt so warm in her icy embrace. She inticed me and she interested me; and the funny part is, we barely met the day before. Someone could imagine how she and I shall be during the actual working parts and gears of Minaka's little idiotic plan.
XXXXXXXXXXX
"Ashikabi." a stern woman's voice echoed in the silence of his dream.
Then came light, and I was standing on top of a building in the middle of the city. No clouds were in the big and empty sky as I saw a woman. Her eyes were shaded from the high contrast of white light, and her white-blonde hair blew in the wind. She was wearing a black gi and a cloak with the hood down made of reflective and yet dark fabric. The inside of the cloak looked to be a crystalline violet color, and her gi had markings of ritualistic appearance of that same violet gradient, and her oobi was a dark grey. I looked around, then back to her. "I have been dying to meet you." she continued.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She smiled sleazily and her eyes illumnated from the harsh shade that once concealed them. They were almond shaped and very finely toned, and her irises were a lighter purple tinted shade of black. They complimented her red-pink lips and her medium sized smooth nose and smaller ears. "I'm 3^$%#..." she answered gleefully, the second word of her sentence blotted out by the sound of grinding of magnets that would usually repel eachother, the sound of the laws of nature crying out in agony. I woke up next to Akitsu, not even able to comprehend the dream I had that night. I went back to sleep and had no dreams before she and I woke up at the same time.
"Good morning, Nathan." Akitsu greeted with a small smile.
"Good morning, Akitsu." I greeted with a girn and a kiss on the cheek. "Can you make breakfeast for me? I'm going to be slightly preoccupied by something, so...?"
She let out a breath through her nostrils in laughter and said, "Yes, Nathan." and we got up out of bed. I walked my way down to the west wing of the palace and into a big studio-sized room. Except this one wasn't like the east wing's studio. This room had some of the stuff I had hoped never to use again. They were all in crates marked by black stamped letters that read: "confidential". I opened them all after 30 minutes of long and hard effort. I took a deep breath and examined all of it.
"All right..." I griped as I took a deep breath. "Let's get this workshop up and running." I finished as I began to start rearranging stuff.
XXXXXXXX
"Akitsu? I didn't know you could cook so well for this." I complimented her. She had cooked pancakes and some hashbrowns for my breakfeast, which I didn't expect- being American cuisine in a foreign country.
"I have learned much about cooking and wifely duties in MBI." she clarified. "I can cook any way you'd like me to, master- I mean, Nathan." she slipped.
"You can call me whichever you'd like. But when we're in public or in a battle of the sekireis, don't use my name, okay?" I requested. "I'd like to keep myself secret from the sekirei plan in terms of the other Ashikabis out there."
"Why?" she asked questioningly.
"I might make many enemies with my ambitions, and with your power alone, before we find other sekireis. Imagine the danger we're in if people know who I am." I answered.
She looked at nme with the slightest crack of curiousity and skepticism. "I understand. Do you have some sort of mask or costume to go with a secretive persona?" she joked a little.
"Not a mask, and not a cotsume." I hinted. "But I did take some stuff from America."
I ate my breakfast with ravaging hunger and desire for the taste. It was warm, delicious, salty and syruppy; which I have only experienced in so many places. As I took bites, I made sounds of immense pleasuree from my mouth and I could swear that I had hearts in my eyes when I looked at Akitsu. She didn't really look any different from how she usually does, just calmer now. Her straw colored hair was kept in some sort of flashy yet kept spiky and pompous style, and she looked like she was adjusting from intense mourning to the calm after the ravaging storm. But she looked at me as I looked at her, and I could almost swear she was going to burst if I did so much as sweet talk to her. I was tempted to try that, but when ice melts, it stays melted. Something told me that I shouldn't do anything ridiculous. As I was lost in my train of thought and my eating, I was just as quickly woken up by the sound of "So Demanding" playing from my rumbling and shaking phone. Minato was calling me, and I was inclined to answer.
"Yello?" I asked.
"Hey, Nathan. Did you see the snow last night?" he asked.
"Yeah, man. I'm not gonna deny, I had a great time with the snow. Reminds me of good time." I answered.
"Oh yeah, you like the weather; I forgot for a second." he blurted. "Hey, are you going anywhere today?"
I looked to Akitsu, and I answered, "Not until later in the morning."
"Oh, okay. Are you doing commissions?" he aked in reply.
"No, actually, I'm going to do stuff with my..." I began to say as I whispered to Akitsu: "Girlfriend when with my friend." then I spoke up to Minato "Girlfriend." hesitantly.
" 'Girlfriend?' Since when did you get a girlfriend?" he asked.
"I did a commission for her, and she and I just clicked." I answered to the best of my ability.
"Wow, I'm impressed. I never thought you were one for the ladies." he congratulated.
"Doubly so for you, brother." I joked.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, as if he took a hard blow.
I laughed a bit and said, "Bro slice, I gotta go. I'll see you later, I think."
"Okay, bye."
"Laters." I gave a farewell as I hung up the phone.
Akitsu and I gave eachother humored looks. "Girlfriend?" she asked.
"Only with him." I justified with a smile. "We'd better head out to that place you said you knew."
We finished breakfast and I walked into the other studio room, and began to open up my stuff for use. "Alright, you guys. Let's get rocking."
Minutes later, I walked out to the front yard to meet Akitsu- who was waiting for me. "What is it that you have?" she asked while examining me with her eyes.
I was wearing silver and violet blue painted plasteel armour for my arms, legs and torso above an under-protection safety suit of skin tight kevlar laced fabric. Twin knife sheathes with hilts sticking out of them were on my thighs, and a longer sheath was on my back. I had a belt with many compartments around my waist, and my helmet was an armored X-visor helmet with orange-red plexiglass visual for the visor. There was a microphone for my helmet, so I could talk clearly and modulate my voice if needed as well. "It's something that I bought years ago. Thankfully, I grew into it." I answered.
"...You're going to try and fight as well." she immediately read.
I blinked in surprise. "Are you a telepath too?" I asked.
"Nathan, you wouldn't be safe doing this." she warned cooly. "Sekireis have powers, and better physiology."
I smiled and held her cheek, as she looked through my visor, even though it was reflective. "I'm better than most, I can do this." I assured. "This armor has protected me from many things."
She was quiet as I could see that she was calmer and agreeing with me. "Very well, master. Follow me." she directed as she jumped to the north. Her leap took her extremely high and extremely far- a good similarity would be a Kryptonian jumping, like in the Man of Steel movie. I smiled as I mentally made the rockets in my back and the calves of my armor ignite and flew my way to her.
We were going at the same speed, but she and I were at such different lengths. I was using technology, and she had naturally denser bones and leg strength capable of making the bounds and leaps that she was making. The city was blurring back around us, until the area become more rural and less packed with buldings and skyscrapers. She and I kept looking to one another, as if she was amazed that a human could ever keep up with her. She can't have been amazed as much as surprised, for she still was keeping the straight face on me. "Stop." she directed as she stopped jumping and I touched down next to her on the asphalt ground.
"So, which one of these is it?" I asked her through my microphone. "Or is it underground?"
She pointed towards an inn that looked like a traditional build of a Japanese big two story hotel. The tile on the roof was a brown-red and the bilding on the outside was brown sprucewood and white stone. There was a nicely made brick wall and an entryway around the place and there was a small garden in the front with entry steps. "An inn?" I asked. "Is your source of info going to be a person?" I kept questioning.
"I'm going to need you to not be concealing your face when we enter. I'm not really well liked in this place, not without you as validation." she warned me as we began to walk to the inn. The sign had one very important writing on it outside.
It said: Maison Izumo inn.
XXXXXXXXXX
Flashback.
The rain was pouring heavily and the sky was black with the night and the clouds, the smell of ozone and old time were in the air, mized in with the feel of the asphalt and the taste of blood. I was standing taller, and six unconscious men were littered around me. I was breathing through my nostrils and my mouth fairly heavily from exhaustion. "Hooh! Man, they were a handful." I whooped out as I brushed myself off and noticed a guy around my age looking at me in awe, a few smaller wounds still undressed or treated.
"Ah...ah..." he bubbled.
"What, are you going to keep being terrorized or are you going to say something?" I asked. "You can't be all weirdo on people who saved you from a beating."
He studdered a bit and zapped into a good posture and bowed in apology. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-!" he started to cry out.
"Chill, kid, you aren't going to get far in life just by being all apologetic and crazy. You have to be able to get and grab for yourself sometimes." I interrupted. "What's you name, kid?"
"Minato. Minato Sahashi!" he blubbered more.
"Calm. Down. I'm not going to demand you to fork over money or... Wait, 'Minato Sahashi'?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's me. Wait, am I famous?" he asked.
"Not where I've been, you aren't. I know that name, I'm your roommate. Those mid-grade apartments with that freaking butthole stingypants landlord?" I referred to.
"Wait. You must be-" he started.
"Nathan Felix, yeah. Well, well, I never expected to meet you like this, kid." I chuckled as shook his hand.
He smiled and closed his eyes in what I saw was anticipation. "Oh, yeah." he chuckled. "It's nice to meet you!"
"Hey, listen, you want to head back and get a drink? You kinda need it after what just went down." I offered.
"I'm 20, I'll be able to drink in a few months."
I scowled in irritation and facepalmed. "Ugh, right. Well, maybe next time I suppose, broseph."
