Chapter Ten - Red Alert
The image of her demonic figure played on the monitor. A numbness had welled up in my stomach, making it hard to breathe. I felt sick. I wanted to punch something and throw a tantrum. I didn't care how selfish that would be, or who saw me, that's really what I wanted to do at that moment.
"I'm sorry..." Ichigo's voice came in a soft whisper. I didn't move. I couldn't.
The girl shifted uneasily, smoothing her dress, before attempting to speak again, "What are you going to do?"
"I... don't..." I wasn't even able to finish my sentence.
"Would you like me to leave?"
"Not really..." I answered in a hollow voice.
"Can I get you anything?"
"...no. I'm not going to ask you for anything."
Ichigo sighed exhaustedly, seeing that she was getting nowhere with me. R2000 had quieted and was floating near her head. I gradually brought myself to my senses.
"I should call Keiichiro and tell him what's going on."
"Uhm... yeah..." she agreed, handing over the pink cell.
"Save your minutes, I have my own phone."
As I headed for the hallway phone, with Ichigo and R2000 trailing behind, a loud rapping came to the door.
"Who could that be?" Ichigo wondered aloud, "It couldn't be Masaya, because he doesn't know I'm here..."
Ichigo tried to peer out the peek hole, but it was out of her reach. Slowly and cautiously she let the door open a crack. Whoever was on the other end pushed the doors open the rest of the way, causing Ichigo to slide backwards across a still wet floor and crash into me.
"Oof!" she complained.
"Hey! Watch it, strawberry!"
"Not my fault..." she whined.
"Oh... forgive me..." the figure appologized, closing the door behind him and immediately removing shoes and a raincoat. His hair hung in a limp chocolate colored ponytail. His face, which was usually composed of a polite smile, was now composed of weary eyes and brows that were knit in concern.
"Akasaka-san!" Ichigo cheered, clapping her hands together. Keiichiro was not, however, in the most pleasant of moods.
"Ryou!" he shouted urgently, "There's something you have to-"
"I know, Keiichiro." I gave him a grave nod and he sighed. His face softened a bit into a look of compassion, "I'm so sorry... I couldn't be sure, so I wasn't able to tell you sooner."
"Don't feel sorry for me," I hissed bitterly, "What's important now is finding a way to stop that demon before she harms anyone else."
Ichigo didn't speak. I know Keiichiro told her the entire story of the Mew Project's origins, so she could follow what we were talking about without too much trouble.
"How are we going to stop it?" Keiichiro asked softly.
That was the question. How? Nothing came to mind. The Mew Project had ended, all of the girls had lost their powers, and it would take too long to relaunch the project. Besides that, what were humans against something like that? No. There had to be something. Anything.
"Why don't you ask the girls to-" Keiichiro started.
"It's impossible. You know that, Keiichiro," I interjected, "I know we hypothesized that the red data animals' DNA might come back on its own if another threat arose, but it's false. I saw Pudding... and Lettuce... the injection marks have been wiped clean away. They can't fight." My brain was working in overdrive, reviewing every ounce of information that I knew about the aliens and the Chimera Animas. There was no way to contact them either, and by the time we actually did see them again, if ever, it would be too late.
"What's that you just said? About the injection mark?" Ichigo asked. How dim could this girl get? Hadn't she learned anything!
"Duh, Ichigo! I just said that your mark went away some time after the fight with Deep Blue. The same thing that happened with the others."
"...no..." she squeaked in an unsure voice.
"Yes..." I corrected.
"Um, no," she insisted.
"Ichigo, this really isn't the time for games!" I growled.
Keiichiro sweatdropped, "Ichigo-san... Ryou..."
"Look, smarty, I'm not playing games!" Ichigo yelled, "I'm telling you that you're wrong!"
"Oh-ho, who's telling who!" I hissed, "The little ichigo neko is telling me I'm wrong?"
"Yes." Next, Ichigo did something very unexpected. Seating herself, she immediately kicked out her right leg and began hiking up her dress, causing Keiichiro to whirl around, blushing as he stared down at the place where a blank wall met the floor.
"What are you!" I protested, eyes glued to the girl who had apparently just lost her mind and also forgotten that the other two humans in the room were males.
"See! You're wrong!" she announced a little too forcefully, pointing to a place on her inner thigh.
For once in her life, Ichigo was right. There, in plain view now that her dress wasn't covering it, was the mark. The Iriomote Wildcat's injection mark. I would never hear the end of it.
"Um... Ichigo..."
"What! Are you gonna appologize now, hotshot?"
"...your underwear is showing..."
"Kyaaa! Pervert! Hentai!" she screeched, throwing the nearest object which was the hairdryer. It missed me by about a foot.
"I wasn't!"
"You were too!"
"I wasn't, you idiot!"
"Ryou... what happened to my brush?"
After everything had calmed down a little bit, a serious conversation resumed.
"So, how come I'm the only one who still has a mark?"
I would have corrected her that there were two people who still had a mark, but I brushed that thought aside.
"Well, Ichigo-san, the Iriomote Wildcat's DNA proved to be the strongest of the five during the testing stage..." Keiichiro started.
I continued for him, "We're not sure why, but it is. This explains why you were affected the most. The wildcat's powers are very dominant, that's why you turned into a cat and none of the others did. That's also why you started experiencing many more symptoms than the others."
"They didn't experience any at all," she grumbled, "except Mint could talk to birds."
"Some of the symptoms are not extremely noticeable, but they all had atleast minor symptoms, I'm sure."
"You were sure my mark was gone too," she pointed out.
I knew I'd never hear the end of it.
"Ichigo-san, we don't want to burden you further, but... do you think you could help us defeat this enemy?"
Ichigo stared at him with a blank expression. I knew what was going through her head. This time around, it would just be her. She had thought everything was over, and now the Mew Project had somehow flared back into existance right when she was starting to get her own life straightened out. She didn't want this. She wanted a normal life again, which was what I owed her.
"I..." her words were lost. She stared down at the floor, coming to grips with what was happening. This was supposed to be my problem.
"Forget it, Ichigo. You don't have to help us."
"Ryou..." Keiichiro looked at me with a shocked expression.
"This is my problem. It isn't your responsibility. It's really late. You should go home now."
"Shirogane..." she stared up at me through sad eyes. I didn't meet them, but instead turned around and stalked towards the stairs.
I heard heels click against the floor, "Shirogane!"
Her call went unanswered as I retreated into the shadows.
"Shirogane-oniichan! Wake up, na no da!"
The sunlight played on my eyelids. Opening them slowly, I saw Pudding hovering above me.
"Hiya! Didja sleep well, na no da?" she asked, flashing a cheerful smile.
"Not really..." I answered, still half-asleep. I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand, and covering a yawn. Pudding giggled and attempted to smooth down the blond mess on top of my head.
"Not a morning person, eh? Na no da?" she joked.
"No..." I swung my feet over onto the floor. My body didn't want to get up, but a quick glance at the clock told me I had better or the whole day was shot.
"Shirogane-oniichan!" Pudding bounded infront of me, hands behind her back, "I have a surprise, na no da!"
"Hunh?"
She whipped something out quickly and pushed it towards me, "Ta da! Lunch!"
I stared. Three onigiri sat neatly on a tray with a glass of juice. How she had managed that feat without spilling them, I would never be able to fathom.
"Since when do you cook?" I asked cocking an eyebrow. There was no way these were edible.
"I didn't make them, silly! They were made by Ichigo-oneechan!"
"Ichigo...?"
"Uh-huh!" she forced the tray towards me so that I took it.
"Lettuce-oneechan will be here soon, na no da! Come down and play with us once you've taken a shower and all that, na no da!" The yellow girl bounded away quickly, with energy to spare.
Now I knew they weren't edible. Making sure my door was shut, and that nobody would come to bother me, I sat back down at the foot of my bed and ate what would be my luncheon.
After the plate was clean, I quickly grabbed a towel, shut the bathroom door, and headed into the shower. The hot water felt good against my skin, but at the same time, it almost put me to sleep. I still didn't know what to do about the current situation. I supposed I'd have to find a way to destroy her myself. Fifteen minutes later, I stumbled drowsily from the shower and back into my room. As my fingers found the zipper on my bluejeans, the bedroom door creaked open.
"Ryou-san? Pudding-chan says that- eek!" the poor girl spun away embarassed, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry! I should have knocked!"
Lettuce was really starting to pick up things from the other girls... I blushed, buttoning them quickly, and throwing on my favorite black vest, "Forget it."
"I'm really sorry!" she appologized, turning back towards me slowly when she was sure I was fully clothed.
"Yeah, so what's up?" I asked, now wide awake.
"Pudding-chan said you were up here for a long time, so I came to check on you... Akasaka-san told me what happened..." her voice fell to a whisper as she looked up at me uncertainly with a sad smile.
"Oh..." I now realized her appology wasn't for her failure to knock alone, but also for what happened.
"I know you don't want any of us worrying, but... if it makes you feel any better, maybe we could talk about it... sometime... if you want to, that is..." she continued cautiously.
"Lettuce?"
"Uh... hai?"
"Thanks... I appreciate it."
The shy girl smiled, "Sure."
I resumed my seated position on the bed, Lettuce crossed the room quietly and sat next to me, ready to listen in that gentle and caring way of hers.
"You see... the Mew Project is over... None of you girls have your powers anymore, save Ichigo, and I'm not even sure that she's retained her full power after all this time. Even so, I don't think she alone can defeat that monster. I'm not trying to be a pessimist..."
"You don't think Ichigo-san will be able to suceed?" she questioned.
"I don't know. I think she'd be too distracted. She shouldn't have to fight. None of us should. I just don't know what to do..." I admitted.
The green-haired girl squeezed my hand reassuringly, "I'm sure you'll think of something. You always have in the past. I think Ichigo-san realizes that she's needed. If there's anyway at all that I can help, I'll do whatever I can!"
I shook my head, "Thanks, but there's really nothing you can do."
"...oh... Ryou... is it really true? Did she really...?" asked Lettuce in a whisper.
"Yeah. Papa had brought back a fossil he found during research in Egypt. He kept it behind glass in his laboratory, and kept a close eye on it. He said the remains belonged to an ancient lifeform. It was a truly ugly thing, but at the same time, extremely fascinating. I think Mama asked him several times to donate it to a museum so we wouldn't have to look at it, but Papa insisted that this was going to help him with his Mew Project... and it did... in an ironic way..." my voice started to crack again. Lettuce placed a warm hand on my shoulder, looking about ready to cry with me.
"And one evening, while Keiichiro and I were driving back from school... she freed herself from that prison and set fire to my house. Both of my parents were..." I choked.
"I'm so sorry, Ryou... I didn't mean to bring that up..." she said, clunking herself on the head, "I'm so stupid. I should know better."
"No... it's alright..."
"...but... you know, sometimes it's better to just let yourself cry. When things are sad, it always helps me to tell someone, rather than bottling all that pain up inside... it makes the sadness a little more bearable..." she explained gently.
I knew she was right. It was my own pride that kept me from showing my emotions, but keeping those emotions inside hurt more than they would if I let them go. It wouldn't change anything either way, but releasing these emotions would help free me of that burden a little, so I could keep on living.
It started in my stomach, a sort of tremor that flooded up into my shoulders. Water pooled in the corners of my eyes, as the tremor reached my voicebox.
"You're right, Lettuce..." I whispered, my lower lip quivering.
"Ryou... gomen nasai..." Tears were trickling down from her own eyes.
"I felt so helpless. I wanted to save them. I would have done anything. But there was nothing... nothing at all that I could do... and now they're gone!" A sob escaped my mouth as long held back tears cascaded down my face.
Unable to hold it in any longer, I cried into Lettuce's lap. The barriers that I had fortified around myself to hide the traces of my suffering and weakness crumbled right there like a soggy graham cracker in a child's fist. My sobs came out loudly and ungracefully. I felt a shaky hand as it stroked the back of my head. It wasn't just my parents I was crying for, I was crying for myself, and for every thing I had wanted to do and had never done. My fit finally quieted. Why was I behaving like such a child?
"Ryou..." she murmured. I forced myself back up, eyes now puffy and red. I hadn't finished.
"After that, I vowed to finish the project for my father, atleast that's how it started. Soon I became obsessed with it, as if it was my only purpose... but now that it's over, I'm left with nothing. I took my youth for granted, my friends, my own dreams... so I'm left an aging man with few friends who has forgotten his own hopes and the faces of the people he's lost.
"Why are you talking like this, Ryou?" she sounded hurt, "There are lots of people who care about you, if only you'd let them. You still have your whole life ahead of you to realize your own dreams. It's not over yet."
"It was over long ago..."
"No it isn't!" she yelled, making me start, "Ryou, it isn't over! You're just going to give up? That's not the Shirogane Ryou-san I know. You never gave up. You used to believe in yourself, and in us, and in your father's dream. So why did you stop believing in yourself?"
I didn't answer.
"Ryou-san?" she sighed.
It all seemed to click. Everything.
"Ryou?" he voice came again worriedly.
I rubbed the water from my eyes with my fingers, "I'm okay."
"Maybe you should get some rest..." she said hesitantly.
"Nu-uh. I'm okay. EVerything just... suddenly made sense. Arigatou."
"Uh... but I didn't..." she blushed.
I shook my head, "That's not what I mean. Thanks for listening to my problems... and for the advice as well..."
"It wasn't really..." her blush deepened.
I rose to my feet. Now that my head and heart were clear, I could see what had to be done. If my intuition was right, there was a way in which I could end this.
"Ryou-san? Are you positive you're okay? I mean..."
I turned back towards her. Bending over, I pecked Lettuce lightly on the cheek, "Yes. I'm positive. Thank you, Lettuce. You've been a big help to me. ...please don't tell anyone? About my tantrum I mean..."
Lettuce's face turned red as an apple as she stared at the floor for a moment, trying to recover from what had just taking place, "Iie, I won't..." She smiled sweetly and giggled, "I promise I won't tell a soul."
As I reached the door, I heard a shuffling of feet outside, but when it opened the hallway was empty. Must be imagining things.
I found the others in the kitchen. Keiichiro was trying to instruct Pudding and Ichigo in making parfait, and failing.
"So, how much sugar does it use again?" The red-head asked.
"Just use it all, na no da!" Pudding chirped, dumping half a bag of the white powder into a mixing bowl.
"Pudding! That's way too much! Even I know that!"
"Ah! Ryou!" Keiichiro greeted with a sweatdrop.
"Yo..." I answered, hands in my pockets as I reached them.
"You finally decided to get up, ne, Shirogane?" Ichigo inquired.
"I'm up," I replied.
"I didn't ask that..." she pointed out.
"Anyway, I had some time to clear my head and I've realized that we can defeat this monster rather easily," I continued, rubbing my neck.
Ichigo watched me with supressed interest, "Is that so?"
"What have you come up with, Ryou?" Lettuce had joined us.
"Well, if the right concentration is used... we can inject genetic material into her so that her powers will degenerate. Then, we should be able to defeat her."
"Do what?" Ichigo asked.
"I mean... the Red Data Animals' genetic material works against the UMA's system. In her weakened state, she could be destroyed."
"You mean in her weakened state, Mew Ichigo could take her out, right?" Ichigo asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
"Well, that would work..."
"But I haven't agreed to anything yet."
"I know you haven't. And you don't have to. I can do it myself."
"Ryou! Don't say something so wreckless!" Keiichiro warned.
"Whoo! Shirogane-oniichan is going to fight, na no da!" squealed Pudding, raising an arm in the air, "I wanna watch!"
"No he isn't!" Lettuce insisted, "Ryou, you can't..."
"I know it's your problem, but you can't fight that... thing," came a calm voice.
"Hrm?" my eyes found the amber ones that belonged to the girl who had spoken.
"You can't fight that thing on your own. You remember what happened last time. You and Lettuce both got hurt when she jumped in to save you."
When I didn't answer she continued, "It's true, I don't want to fight. Things had just started to become normal again for me. But, we can't let her hurt anyone else. I've given this a lot of thought... I'll help as long as I can... Masaya's not too hot on the idea..."
"Ichigo-san..." Keiichiro rested his arms on the red-head's shoulders, "We appreciate this, but we're not forcing you to fight. You shouldn't stress yourself over this. We will find a way to stop it on our own."
"No, Akasaka-san! If I am still Mew Ichigo, there must be a reason for it... besides..." the catgirl perked up and batted her hand in the air, "I serve for the Earth's future, even if it's mainly just the future of the meanie who was once my employer. I'll do what I can, nya!"
A/N: Please send in more ideas for things we can do at the birthday party at the end of this fic. We wanna make it fun! If it helps, it's going to be Ryou's birthday party! We have pinata and spin the bottle suggestions so far. I'd like something really creative.
Chapter Eleven, "Melted Icecream". Guaranteed cuteness. Yush. It was going to be titled "Melting Snow", but I changed it, ofcourse, after changing it, I realized there was no way around it being in December. In "Kokoro", Ryou's birthday is in October (on my birthday, his voice actor's birthday is in October too, so it does make some sense), so either a lot of time is going to pass in the remainder of the fic, or Ryou's going to have a really late, or changed birthday. x.x; Silly Cherry. Ah well. Hope this chapter wasn't too angsty/depressing for you and that some of you appreciated the little bit of RxR-ishness. Please keep reading, nya. And thanks for the reviews.