WOAH!!! Hot, Hot, HOT!!!!!! LOL… I got flamed… I always wondered what being 'flamed' meant, and now I do know…
Thanks to J.Y. Liu, and Carmen Hailey (both are anonymous XD) who yelled at Wrath of Flames, the person who flamed me. But it's alright. Being flamed was a new experience for me, and it was unexpectedly amusing… *shakes head*
Here is the story!
Last Chapter:
"Back to the café." Ryou ordered. He seemed to want to say something, but ushered them out.
Behind them, a pair of eyes glinted in the semi-darkness, waiting…
Chapter 9: Possibilities…
Ryou closed the door of the café. He seemed really puzzled.
"How can a mew be created from the DNA of an extinct animal? That's not possible! Who created this mew anyways?!" He fumed.
The mews stayed a distance away.
Ichigo said, "Did she know about Zakuro? And… her prophecy sounded so scary…"
"How'd you know if it was a prophecy? She may be blabbing junk, for all we know…" Minto said scornfully.
"Well if it was fake, she did it really convincingly…" Lettuce mused.
"Let's go see Zakuro-san, na no da!" Pudding exclaimed. They ran to the basement, leaving Ryou still muttering, "This is not possible… must be… no, cannot…" and a whole string of gibberish, which was very unlike him…
Ichigo put her hand on the door and pushed lightly. "Zakuro, are you there?"
"I cannot be anywhere else." Zakuro replied dryly.
"Can we come in?" Lettuce asked.
"Sure." The door opened. "So, what happened?" She asked.
Everyone started speaking at once.
"We found a new mew—
"Absolutely unbelievable—
"She was pretty, na no d—
"— guards a portal—
"Can go to other universes—
"—STOP!" Zakuro yelled. "I can't listen to everybody speak all at once…ah, Ichigo, you speak."
"We went to where the strange intake of power was… there was another mew! Could you believe it?!? And her powers were so strong… she guards the portal, it was something like Lynesef, or was it Lynesif… but the name was so strange… anyways she was so mean to us! She shooed us away! And there was a prophecy…"
Zakuro took Ichigo's blabbering without comment, then finally opening her mouth to speak.
"So… are you going to try to recruit her?"
No one replied. They hadn't thought about that… They were still trying to recover from the fact that there was another mew… with strange powers too…
"I think we should…" Ichigo told the others.
"Why? She seems like a selfish, rude, mean loner!" Minto said.
Ichigo smiled. "But... I like her… when she pushed me away, she didn't push that hard… she could have pushed much harder, to hurt me… but she didn't…" Her strawberry eyes glinted. "In her eyes, I thought I saw loneliness, when she told us to leave, and envy, at us because we're a group, so united, a group of comrades. Right? We're the Tokyo Mew Mew!"
Lettuce and Pudding nodded, but Minto raised her nose and said, "Who said I'm your comrade? That's such a degrading term..."
Ichigo opened her mouth to argue, but Minto smiled and gave one of her rare friendly grins. "Just joking..."
Ichigo was stunned to silence. She didn't find it very funny.
"But… what can we do about the girl? She doesn't want to see us, and won't listen to any persuasion… plus, her powers are so strong, and she guards the portal with some strange language… it sounded so weird, like the word had powers on its own… it was scary… did you get that feeling?" Lettuce asked the rest.
They nodded. Zakuro looked thoughtful. "A strange language, you say?"
"Yeah." Minto replied. "I don't think it is even from earth, or at least it isn't any modern language I know of. Lots of people visit my home, but I've never heard anyone speak like that before…"
Zakuro's eyes flashed, but she said nothing. "Did she say anything else?"
"Well… there was a prophecy… erm, it went: Beware of those you think you trust. Trust your eyes, what you see, and your instincts… Animal instincts can see through human influences… Be wary… an imposer is amongst you…" Ichigo's voice filled with the strange type of hypnotic light as she spoke the words. They did not come from her memory, but simply formed as a being… She shook her head. "Whoa. What did I say?"
"=.=… you just spoke the prophecy… and you looked pretty scary too, na no da…" Pudding said.
Zakuro simply looked shocked, and troubled. Recovering herself, she said, "How could there be an imposer amongst us? But, how big is the us? Like, would the imposer be in our immediate circle, or maybe it would be amongst our family and friends?"
Her words made sense, as usual. She continued, "We should be wary. I'm sure between us five, we aren't, erm, 'fake'. But we have to be especially cautious, seeing if they appear... different from usual, or something like that. Agreed?"
Everyone nodded. Zakuro too, nodded, satisfied that they managed to get something done.
"What are you all talking about here?" Ryou's voice made them jump.
"No-nothing! Don't scare us like that!" Ichigo yelled at him. "Anyways… looks like you've recovered from your bout of craziness… haha…" She teased.
Ryou did not seem to be pleased at her comment. "Strawberry, I am not crazy. If we were to find someone who is crazy in this room, it would be you."
"Argh-hmpf!" Ichigo made an angry noise. "You…!!"
"Shirogane-san… Ichigo… don't fight…" Lettuce pleaded. They turned to her. "THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!!" They shrieked in unison. Turning to each other, they said, "Don't copy me!" and turned in another direction.
Everybody else was thinking, O.o… they are so…unified… haha… XD
They left the room one by one, except for Zakuro, who was currently the occupant of the room, said, "When will you two stop bickering? Get out of my space."
And so they left, still yelling at each other. Zakuro tapped Ichigo on the shoulder just as she left.
"Remember what I said." She said curtly, indicating about the 'cautious' thing.
"What did she say to you?" Ryou asked, once they were out of the room.
"Nothing much. Not important" Ichigo told a half-lie.
"Are you sure? What did she say?! Tell me!" Ryou repeated.
"I said, nothing! Why don't you believe me?!" She replied hotly.
"What were you all talking about in that room? I have to know what is going on!" Ryou persisted, as aggravated as Ichigo.
"Why do you need to know? This is none of your business!" Ichigo glared at him. "Don't spy on other people's business!"
Strange, she reflected, this is not like Shirogane… he's acting so… abnormally… he must have not slept enough. She was reminded of how she, er, woke up this morning. She turned a delicate shade of strawberry pink, feeling a burn on her face.
"... not spying on other people's business… team… must not have secrets…" Ryou had continued to speak; she had been distracted by her own thoughts, and only managed to catch a few words.
"— Oh stop being such a fuss. It's getting late; I need to go…" Ichigo cut in. She put her cool hands on her burning cheeks (which Ryou had thankfully not noticed). She turned to him once the flame on her face died down. "Good-bye." With that, she turned around and started walking off.
"Ichigo! Wait! I'm not finished!" Ryou yelled after her.
"Erm, Shirogane-san?" A voice came from behind him.
He wheeled around. "Lettuce? Yes?"
"I was just wondering about the arrangements for Zakuro. How is she?" Lettuce asked.
"Nothing special. She should be okay in a few days." Ryou replied distractedly. "Whatever. I still have something to tell Ichigo. ICHIGO!!!" He raised his voice at the end of the sentence.
He hurried away, leaving Lettuce standing in the dark (this is the basement).
Whoa. This is weird of Shirogane not to care about the members of the team and to plan carefully… Lettuce thought. She shook her head, and went out to where the remaining 2 mews were.
"Ichigo, ICHIGO!!!" Ryou raised his voice again. Ichigo did not seem to have heard.
Covering the distance between them with a few long strides, he tapped the strawberry girl on the shoulder. "Ichigo!"
"—huh?" Ichigo stopped suddenly, causing them to collide. "Oh, sorry!" She picked herself up from the ground, taking a helping hand from Ryou.
She had been thinking about tomorrow. She shook her head, and said, "You were calling me?", rubbing her head.
"Yeah. I just wanted to tell you that you would have tomorrow off as well. The café is not opening tomorrow." He said. Looking at her, he asked casually, "How're you going home? Walking?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm… do you wanna take a ride in my car? I'll send you."
Ichigo was fully awake now, and rather suspicious . "What?!"
"Nothing, just asking if you would want me to send you." Ryou said innocently.
"Nani?! Since when do you send me anywhere on your car?" Ichigo asked in surprise.
"Since now." He started walking towards his car. "Are you coming or not?"
After a moment of hesitation, Ichigo ran after him. "Wait for me!"
BANG. Ichigo shut the car door behind her. She looked at the almost hidden sun sending rays of light to the twilight sky.
"Why are you doing this? Sending me and everything?" She asked Ryou, who was already driving.
"Do I need a reason?" Ryou asked her in return.
"Well, no. But, I wanted to know—"
"No reason." Ryou said curtly.
Ichigo kept her silence. Things were getting weird. Don't Shirogane and I always fight? Why is he so nice to me all of a sudden? His lack of sleep must be making him go crazy. This is just… totally not like him… Totally different from usual… Those words suddenly sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite remember where she had heard them from. She focused back on the road ahead of her, a little intimidated by the speed of Ryou's driving.
They sat in silence, enjoying the wind on their faces. She glanced at him every so often, curiously.
It was getting darker, and the sun had totally disappeared by the time they reached Ichigo's house. It was also quite cold. Ichigo shivered slightly.
Ryou seemed to notice that and said, "Are you cold?"
Ichigo froze. "Yeah, but I'm fine, really."
"You're not." It was a mere statement.
Ichigo rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, Shirogane." She turned to glare at him, but was instead wrapped in a jacket. Ryou's jacket.
"Don't catch cold." He murmured as he made sure it wouldn't fall off. Reaching around her, he secured the jacket, pulling her into an almost-hug. It lasted only for a moment, however. He led her off the car and pushed her onto her doorstep, ignoring her protests.
He flicked her nose, "Good-bye."
He turned back to his car, but paused and faced her again.
"One more thing." He said.
He leant forward, backing the cat girl towards the door.
Ichigo's eyes widened as he got closer, and closer…
Yoz!!! I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long… sorry. Too much school work. I'll try to update as soon as I can… though I can't actually say when that will be… but I'll try my best
^.^
Tata for now!! Please review and comment!
