Kamikaze Kaitou Ookami
Ch. 2 – Small Talk
Author Note: Mostly a background information chapter, with a bit of interaction and relationship bulding between the characters. Ch. 3 will be more action packed. Just for the readers information, unless I specifically say that Midori is speaking in English, she would be speaking in Japanese. I'd think that this is obvious, but just in case.
Disclaimer: The original storyline that precedes this fanfic is property of Arina Tanemura's. All original characters of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne belong to Arina Tanemura. The idea for this continuation fic is my own and all characters that are not from Arina Tanemura's original series belong to me, unless otherwise stated in later chapters. Thank you!
I woke to the sight of an unfamiliar white tiled ceiling and the smell of antiseptic. I knew immediately that I was in a hospital. One couldn't mistake the smell for being anywhere else. Trying to raise my hand to my forehead resulted with a restricted pull. I rolled my head to the side to look down and find that the I.V. line was caught on the side rail of the hospital bed. With a cringe, because I hate needles, I untangled the plastic tub and pushed myself up on my elbow to look around the room. Being carried to the school infirmary by Yamamoto was the last thing that I remembered.
"Oh, Thank goodness! You're awake," the familiar voice of my twin brother filled my ears. I looked over my shoulder to find the Jun-Tenshi flying towards me.
"Tomo-kun, what happened?" I asked, my eyes following as he flew around until he was in front of me.
"Don't you remember?" He asked in a worried tone. My blank expression seemed to be enough to convince him of the obvious. "Nagoya sensei ordered for you to be brought here after you passed out in the school infirmary yesterday," he went on to explain.
"Yesterday!?" I exclaimed in surprise. "You mean that I have been here since then?" Tomonori nodded in confirmation to my statement before I continued. "What about Mom?"
"I told her to go on to work because you are doing fine," Nagoya sensei said from the doorway. "I told her that you would be waking up today and that I would see to it that you got home safely," the doctor continued to say.
"O…kaaay…" I spoke in English, purposely dragging out the sound of the word. "So then, what happened?"
"You weren't as careful as you should have been while fighting that last Oni," Tomonori answered in Nagoya sensei's place.
"Do you remember my warning that if you were ever injured by an Oni, especially when they are not possessing a human, that you were to come directly to me?" Nagoya sensei asked.
I thought for a moment, trying to remember. "Yeeaahh…" I eventually answered.
"Then why didn't you?" Nagoya sensei asked, though it sounded more like an accusation.
"I told you not to go to school yesterday and that you should go see Nagoya-san," Tomonori chided before I could say anything.
Reaching out with my I.V. free hand, I grabbed my annoying little angelic brother. "I told you so has an older brother called shut the hell up," I quoted in English. During our scene, Nagoya sensei crossed the room and was now by my side checking my vitals. "It was only a scratch," I finally replied regarding the injury by the Oni.
"That scratch nearly cost you your life," Nagoya sensei replied as he began to carefully pull the tape away from the bandage on my left shoulder. "The Oni are different from the demons that Maron and I fought as Kaitou," he then began to explain. I cringed as he pulled a piece of the tape off of my skin. After a quick apology he continued, "Once your wolf has exercised the Oni from possessing a human, if you do not checkmate it right away with your wakizashi, it may take on its physical form." I shivered at the thought of the ogre looking being that I had fought the other day. "In that form, if you are injured, even a small insignificant scratch can be deadly." I felt as he pulled the gauze away from my shoulder. When I turned to see what had originally been a thin scratch, I found an angry looking gash roughly 2 cm wide and 4 cm long. To my surprise there were some archaic looking symbols drawn around it.
"Nani?" I spoke my confusion. What in the world was going on?
"You were poisoned," Nagoya sensei answered. "It is not a poison that I have an antidote for, though." I looked up at him with what must have been a frightened expression. "It was Shikaidou sensei that saved you," he quickly explained. I cringed at the mention of the demon knight who pretended to be a history teacher at our school. Seeing my reaction Nagoya sensei seemed to understand my feelings towards the man, who was also the advisor of the kendo club. "It was Shikaidou sensei who used his powers as a demon knight and drew the symbols in order to draw out the poison."
I had long since released Tomonori and the angel was now hovering above Nogoya sensei's shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest, nodding his approval of the story. "If only you had listened to me…." My twin started to say, but decided against finishing the sentence when I shot him a warning glare.
"What did you tell my mother?" I asked the doctor, silently praying that he didn't say anything about Kaitou or Oni.
"Only that your move to Japan from America has put a lot of stress on you and it made you physically ill. I requested that you stay in the hospital for some extra rest and recuperation," Nagoya sensei answered. Great, I thought to myself sarcastically. Now my mother will surely be overly concerned about my well-being.
Nagoya sensei set about cleaning my shoulder wound and dressed it with a fresh bandage saying that it should heal normally and that the symbols would fade when it was completely healed. He then left the room to order my release.
"I need to go do some research in order to find out why so many Oni have become so prevalent recently," Tomonori told me while following Nagoya sensei out of the room. As usual, he left no time for me to respond.
I stood from the bed and went to the closet to find a change of clothes that my mother must have brought from home. I slipped into the light blue jean shorts and pulled the black tank top, which featured a howling wolf silhouetted against a full moon, over my head. At that moment the nurse arrived to remove my I.V. Happy to be rid of it I set about the task of brushing out my knee length hair. I was taking a break about half way through braiding it when there was a knock on the door. Finally, I thought to myself, they were here with my release paperwork. However, I was surprised when I turned towards to door to find Yamamoto standing there. My expression clearly showed my disappointment. What was taking so long for them to get around to letting me out of here?
Yamamoto stood in the doorway looking as if he might turn around and leave at any moment. He looked at my attire, though I couldn't tell if he approved of it or not. Up until now he had only seen me in my School uniform. I looked more like an American now. When his gaze found mine he looked for a second as if he thought that he might have come to the wrong room. "Anou…I came as representative of the kendo club to see how you are doing," he finally gave his excuse as to why he was here.
I finished braiding my hair and flipped the long thick platinum braid over my shoulder. "Arigato, thanks," I replied. "I'm waiting to be released now," I informed him as if that alone should explain my annoyance. His posture relaxed some in understanding.
"Are you well, now?" He asked.
"Yeah, mostly," I answered, trying to remember what Nagoya sensei had told my mother so that I knew what excuse I should give to my classmates as well. I didn't have a chance to explain though as Nagoya sensei came up behind Yamamoto in the doorway and clasped a hand onto his shoulder to lead him further into the room.
"I'm glad to see you here, Yamamoto-kun," Nagoya sensei stated. "An emergency has come up and I can't take Midori-chan home as I promised. May I trust you to take her home instead?" He asked in a rush of words. Without waiting for an answer he then approached me with my release paperwork. "I'm sorry about this Midori-chan, but I trust that Yamamoto-kun will get you home safely." I looked up at Yamamoto and caught hold of his gaze. We stared at one another blankly; neither one of us was sure how to respond. "Just sign here, and you're free to go," Nagoya sensei said, drawing my attention back down to the paperwork. Taking the pen that I was being offered, I signed my release papers. Nagoya sensei handed my copy to me and looked at me for the first time since he had entered the room. "Now, remember what I told you," he told me. His intense look told me that what he was referring to couldn't be repeated in front of company. I nodded and he turned to rush out of the room, thanking Yamamoto when he walked past.
Yamamoto and I stared at one another for a moment without saying a word. We both seemed to be trying to figure out what had happened within the last couple of minutes. Yamamoto was the first to clear his throat to speak. "Well then, shall we go?" He asked while stuffing his hands into his pant's pockets and moving to the side as if waiting for me to take the lead.
"Umm… Sure…" I spoke in English and took an awkward step forward to walk past him and out the door. We walked silently through the halls to the elevator, down to the first floor, and out of the hospital. I also stuffed my hands into my pockets for nothing better to do with them. My mother had taken my school uniform and bag home with her, so I had nothing to carry. Now that we were outside, I started to walk down the sidewalk, expecting that Yamamoto would follow as he had been since we left my hospital room.
"Where are you going?" I heard him ask. "The bus stop is the other way," he informed me as if I didn't already know.
I stopped and turned to the side to look at him. "My mother took my wallet with her when she took my things home," I explained as if it should be obvious.
Yamamoto was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. We silently stared at each other for a couple of minutes, neither one of us budging from our spots. "If we don't hurry, the bus is going to leave and we'll have to wait for the next one," he finally broke the silence to say. It was now my turn to raise an eyebrow. Though I struggled to stay polite, I wanted more then anything to ask if he was deaf. "You've been sick and you expect me to let you walk home from here?" He spoke impatiently. "We're riding the bus if I have to pick you up and carry you on it," he added with a tone of annoyance and took a threatening step towards me as if daring me to challenge him.
"I'll pay you back tomorrow," I said with a sigh of defeat as I began to walk towards him.
We barely made it in time to catch the bus. The bus was crowded with people heading home from work, meaning that there weren't any seats available. I stood, partly leaning against a handrail. Yamamoto stood close beside me, holding onto the same rail. I didn't give our position much thought, given how crowded the bus was, but there was little room between us. After a few stops, the bus began to empty and Yamamoto insisted that I sit down in one of the empty seats. I obliged, though I was feeling fine. I supposed I would just have to play along about not feeling well. He was taking this whole, "getting me home safely" thing very seriously.
At last the bus came to our stop. I felt anxious to get home and wondered if Tomonori had found anything out during his research. We stepped off of the bus at the familiar location where we always seemed to bump into one another in the mornings on our way to school. At this point I expected that he would go off in his own direction figuring that I should be able to make it home from here okay on my own. "You live in this direction, don't you?" Yamamoto said, catching me by surprise as he began to walk towards my apartment building.
"Yeeaah," I said, again defaulting to English as my native language. "Anou…. I'll be fine from here. I have inconvenienced you enough between yesterday and today," I spoke hastily as I rushed to catch up to him and block him from going any further. This all felt really awkward to me. A guy hadn't ever walked me home before. Thank goodness my mother was at work, she worked the evening shift as a clerk at the hotel her father owned, because I'd be afraid of what she would think. "Arigato gozaimasu," I bowed in front of him.
"Nagoya sensei asked that I saw you safely home," he responded. "You're not home yet," he pointed out to my dismay and continued to walk around me. I followed reluctantly.
"You and Nagoya sensei seem to know one another pretty well," I observed as we walked.
"Nagoya sensei has treated any injury that has resulted from my kendo training since he was an intern, and his father treated me before that. I suppose you can say that we're like family," he answered.
That explained their familiarity with each other, I thought to myself as we continued to walk.
"Why did you move here from America?" His question took me by surprise. Wasn't mom always saying how impolite it was to ask someone about their past? I stared at his back while we walked wondering why he would ask such a thing. My silence alerted him to the unusualness of his question. "Gomen ne, I'm sorry, you don't have to answer. It was rude of me to ask," he said in haste.
I shook my head, though it wasn't like he could see my actions. "It's okay," I answered. We continued to walk quietly. When I spoke, he stopped in front of me nearly causing me to collide into him. "My parents got divorced and my mother moved back here to be close to her family." I had finally decided to answer his question.
"I see, I'm sorry for asking. It was rude," he repeated again.
I shrugged my shoulders and stepped around him to continue on our way. It was just small talk. We might just as well have been talking about the weather. It didn't bother me. We were coming close to my apartment building. We would soon go our separate ways and resume our daily routine tomorrow.
From behind me, I heard a familiar voice calling for me. It was Tomonori, and he sounded panicked. "Midori-chan!" He called over and over as if he thought that I didn't hear the first couple of times that he had called my name. "Quick, we have a problem!" I turned to look past Yamamoto at the ball of light that was closing the distance between us. I wasn't the only one to see it, though. Just before Tomonori could fly past him, Yamamoto reached out suddenly to snatch at the ball of light as if to see if it was really there. To Yamamoto's surprise, he found that his fist enclosed around a solid form. He then stared wide-eyed with shock and disbelief at what he was holding. "What is this?"