FALLING STARS CHAPTER 10- FAMILY REUNION
Minami Iwasaki laid in her bed in a drugged haze. The stimpaks had done their magic quite effectively after some very painful surgery to get her dislocated arm and split bone back into place. To counter this pain she took a large dose of morphine and decided to sleep it off. Hopefully, Hiyori's dealing with Kuroi ended in less bloodshed. Oddly she couldn't bring herself to show any degree of care about that. Then again she was the very epitome of apathy. Her story began in a small pathetic settlement under the name of Big Town. Big Town had been founded as a place that children raised in another settlement called Little Lamplight would go when they reached adulthood. Big Town was the number one target for slavers and Super Mutants and anyone else who just felt like making someone else miserable.
Her parents were completely broke and couldn't afford to move to anywhere else, that was fine because everyone else there was too. When she was four years old her father ventured into the wastes with his own father, in hope of finding something he could bring back and sell so they could have a comfortable life. He met his unfortunate end when spending the night in an old structure called The Dunwich Building, the mercenaries with him informed the widowed Iwasaki about this and how he had disappeared without a trace. Minami was sure he was still out there somewhere.
At that point her mother had the hard decision of either trying to raise Minami alone in a town that was under attack almost daily from outside forces or let her grow up in Little Lamplight alone with the other children. Minami made the decision for her saying she would stay there and vow to make herself useful.
Only seven years old she was already on the night watch armed with a hunting rifle and a katana she inherited from her late father called Vampire's Edge. The stress that job left her nearly catatonic to the point where she would only answer questions asked directly to her and never speak besides that.
Her life took another turn when she was fourteen and slavers launched a massive raid on Big Town; it was during the day when she slept so she wasn't there for the initial attack. Minami's mother, who was out in the fields trying to farm something out of the savage irradiated mockery of an agriculture, was one of the first to be captured. Eventually she and the other able bodied fighters were able to drive them back. But four of their women, them along with her mother were dragged away.
It was at that point when Minami realized there was nothing left in Big Town for her, so she packed what little she owned and set out for the waste to possibly become a mercenary. However, most fourteen year old girls were seldom hired for jobs like that. So she became a scavenger, hunting through ruins looking for anything of value. One night when she was camping out with some other wastelanders something happened, she briefly remembered a struggle with something, she didn't know what that something was. Minami blacked out and when she woke up she found the three wasters dead with their throats torn out.
Over the years similar occurrences happened but still couldn't be explained, she would wake up with everyone around her dead. From this she became reluctant in dealing with people and spent almost all her time alone, people tended to die around her. It was one faithful day when a group of Enclave soldiers led by a woman under the name of Lieutenant Kuroi found a young green haired girl in ragged clothes standing over the body of a Deathclaw. She was holding a rusted katana and smothered in blood, none of which was her own. The Enclave was quick to add her to their ranks.
Minami tried her best to forget the Enclave and her time with it, her time with them only lasted about six months before an incident happened. She barely remembered it, the local General wanted to bitch at her company for something and they stood there being screamed at for someone's mistake when something curious caught her eye.
The Force Colonel who served as General Maynard's right hand man, with a green haired woman trudging reluctantly behind her. A mint-green haired woman that looked like an older version of her, who apparently was this mans pleasure slave.
As mentioned before she didn't remember the details, just the blurry image of her teeth gnashing through that's bastard's throat and some gunfire.
"Iwasaki we have visitors." A light female voice called, it sounded a million miles away. Minami rolled over and tried to ignore it, she felt like she had earned the right to sleep in. Just once.
"Leave her alone, she needs rest!" Another girl replied
"It's more people asking about Yutaka, ma'am, what should I tell them?" The other said, apparently ignoring Yutaka outright.
"Don't talk like I'm not here!" A frustrated Yutaka cried.
Minami slowly sat up and blinked sleep out her eyes. Yutaka had been caring for in her wounded state and was still at her bedside. The other person was one of the Family members, Celia, who was in charge in Minami's absence. Celia was a bit of an oddball but Minami liked her, she had been the first one to join the Family just after Minami had left then Enclave.
"Give me a moment to compose myself, I will meet them." She told them.
"What if they're here to hurt you too!?" Yutaka protested, up until a Kuroi's visit she had this image of Minami being an invisible warrior and for good reason. Now she was extremely concerned about her safety.
"Thank you but I'll be fine." Minami reassured her, she slipped out of bed and put on her leather duster and rolled back the sleeves. On her right arm was massive ragged scar across her elbow that had the texture of wound that had recently lost its scab.
"Stay here." She ordered and went to meet the visitors; Yutaka protested more but ultimately obeyed. She knew that Minami had her best interests in mind.
Minami entered the large living space and saw three girls surrounded by several Family members. One with obnoxiously long blue hair with a lock of it sticking up at an impossible angle, she was wearing a strange blue jumpsuit that was torn in dozens of places and dotted with dry blood. The two other girls were close enough in appearance to be twins, one had her lilac hair into two ponytails that ran parallel together, and she was wearing the same thing as the blue haired girl except hers was lightly fortified with various bits of garbage. The third girl had much shorter lilac hair and was wearing a yellow bandanna across her forehead, her attire was different. A loose white tank top and cargo shorts, Minami assumed she was a mercenary or something and the laser pistol and well used sword on her back punctuated her accusation further.
"You wanted to talk to me?" Minami asked them.
"Yeah I heard you kidnapped my cousin!" The blue haired one, with a curiously shaped mouth, accused.
"Excuse me?" She replied with acid dripping from her voice, the Family didn't kidnap anyone. She glanced around the other Family members for one that resembled her, Minami's eyes met Celia's who had rich deep purple hair which she had gone through great lengths to dye.
"Not my cousin!" Celia said, throwing her arms up in defense.
"Yutaka Kobayakawa, where is she?" The twin tailed girl demanded.
"You're not taking her back, she's one of us now and you can't help her!" Minami growled and rested her hand on Sishkabob.
"We're not here to fight you; Yutaka just needs to go home to her sister. We saw what happened to her parents." The blunette pleaded.
"Then you know full and well she can never see her sister again."
"What are you talking about?" The tiny girl, with the lips that almost formed a sideways three, yelled in frustration.
Minami's jaw dropped. "You…you don't know do you?"
"Know what!?" The three girls shouted in unison.
A CHANGE OF POV
"Should we tell her, boss?" The purple haired woman asked the green haired one. Konata was deeply afraid of whatever secret they were hiding, nothing good came from this level of secrecy.
"You can do it, I'm going to go visit Yutaka. She needs me now." The woman in charge answered and treaded off into the darkness. Konata went to follow her but was stopped by Kagami's gentle hand.
The purple haired woman nodded and saluted. "Okay Minami you got it." She looked at the three visitors for a second. "Hold on a second I have to go get my story enhancer." She told them and bounded off happily.
"I don't like this." Kagami said, the other gang members went away to do their own business but were keeping an eye on them from the shadows of this old subway station.
"Do you think they hurt her?" Konata asked worriedly, this "Minami's" strange conversation had definitely given her reason for superstition.
At that moment the other girl returned with a battered V styled electric guitar. "My explanation goes great with music. Oh yeah my names Celia Brown by the way." She told them enthusiastically and played a quick scale no one else could here beyond faint plucking of strings.
"Really liking this place so far." Kagami muttered sarcastically.
"No interrupting!" Celia shouted causing a few heads to turn. "Anyhoo's our story goes like this. Once upon a time a girl named Minami Iwasaki found out she suffered from hematophagy." As she was explaining she was playing some inaudible guitar solo which Konata thought must have sounded amazing if she had an amplifier to go with it, her fingers were moving a flurry, and her words were nearly lost on Konata due to her lack of focus.
Tsukasa was the first to speak up. "Isn't that when an animal eats another animal's blood?"
How does she know that? Kagami thought, out of nowhere Tsukasa was becoming a little encyclopedia.
"Correct you are," Celia answered and kept on playing her silent ballad, "except it only applies for her with human blood." The three girls grimaced noticeably. "She found me and others like us who suffer the same thing. It's a hunger we can't control and Minami started the Family so we weren't alone in this."
"What does this have to do with Yutaka though?" Kagami was the first to ask.
"Duh, she's one of us. You said you found her parents, what did you think killed them?" Celia smugly replied.
Konata felt her stomach churn from hearing that, apparently Minami didn't kidnap her exactly. "I need to go for a walk." She muttered and stumbled off back towards the subway tunnels that led there.
Kagami sprinted to catch up with her; Tsukasa stayed behind was still conversing with silent musician. "Konata come back, this is getting old you know!"
"Kagami she killed and drank the blood of her parents!" Konata yelled sounding almost hysteric. "She's a fucking psycho, let's go back and tell Yui-neesan that she's here and she can visit her own time."
"Konata…" Was all Kagami was able to reply with, she had never heard her small friend talk like that about anyone, especially another family member. "Let's just go back and sort this out."
Before she could reply Kagami picked her up and carried her back over her shoulder. "Oh but when I'm the one who does this, I'm the villain." Konata pouted.
"Exactly." Kagami smiled feeling a little bit evil. She dropped her back next to Tsukasa, Minami had returned with another nervous looking Family member who was shorter than Konata with shoulder length salmon colored hair.
"That's her." Minami said quietly and pointed at Konata.
The small little girl walked up to Konata and got a good look at her. Konata looked around nervously wondering if anyone else noticed the strange girl staring her down. "You're my cousin?" Yutaka asked excitedly. Konata stepped back in surprise; she was expecting her cousin to be some blue haired psychopath, not this adorable little girl dripping with moe. Her shirt has a carrot on it man!
"I guess so." She managed to smile in spite of herself. Further to her surprise Yutaka hugged her around the waist tightly.
"Yui-neesan is worried sick about you." Konata pointed out.
"I almost forgot about her," Yutaka admitted, "Before I met Minami she was the only one who knew about my…problem. I hope she isn't too worried."
"Oh she's just wondering why you can't chatted in awhile." Konata lied not wanting to worry the frail girl even more. It was pretty evident she had been through a lot. Still she couldn't help but remember that image of those two corpses shoved together into a crude embrace.
FEAR THE CUTE ONES
Minami had promised to take Yutaka to Megaton at their earliest convenience to meet her sister again. They let the three girls spend the night there and stayed up later than normal just talking and listening to Konata and Kagami's story.
Likewise Minami and Yutaka shared there's. One night, just over two months ago, Minami had been walking around in the cool air when she found this small girl sitting on the top of a shack, apparently a Deathclaw had wandered down south and trapped her up there. Minami quickly slew the demon and helped the frail girl down.
Minami escorted her home and her parents were a little less than welcoming, they had known about her and the Family and drove her away calling her names like "monster" and "demon" and "vampire". Nothing she wasn't used to. The next night she wandered down by the Brahmin pasture where the shack she saved Yutaka the previous night. Yutaka had shown up that night hoping to meet her new friend again. Their friendship went from there. It was by sheer luck that Yutaka's best friend was the leader of the Family when her bloodlust took over her that faithful night.
Later that night Konata found herself unable to sleep, to much had happened these last two weeks and it was weighing heavily on her mind.
"Kagami, you asleep?" She whispered and poked the tsundere several times on the cheek.
"I was…" Kagami muttered and sat up. "What is it?"
"I've been thinking, what are you going to do after I find my dad?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean after we find him it's either you hack the door and go back to Vault 101, or we help him finish Project Purity." Konata explained. Kagami mentally slapped herself; if she hacked it from the inside she could do the same from the outside as well. Why hadn't Konata mentioned that earlier!?
"I don't know." Kagami shrugged and tried to get comfortable again.
"If you want to go home I won't stop you." Konata told her, Kagami could detect a hint of sorrow in her voice.
"I told you I'll stay with you for however long it takes." Kagami sighed.
"For however long what takes?" Konata probed, trying to lure Kagami's deredere side out.
"You know what I mean!" Kagami growled and rolled over to try to end the conversation. Konata said nothing; she was pleased with the results of this conversation.
THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE
That night's events weren't completely over yet though. Several hours later the entire Family by a girl screaming and a dog barking.
"Tsukasa!?" Kagami instantly realized and sat up. She jumped off of the mildew covered mattress and sprinted to where Tsukasa had been sleeping.
"Cherry, down!" Minami, who made it there first, yelled at her massive white dog. The dog looked up and her from the body she was gnawing on. Tsukasa was in the corner whimpering.
"What happened?" Kagami asked, looking around at the scene. Apparently some nine foot tall misshapen intruder barged in and when through Tsukasa's things before Cherry went berserk and chewed its throat out.
Someone flicked on a lantern for a better view, and the scene in front of them shocked everyone.
The thing that lay half-bent on its side in a fetid pool of greenish-yellow ichors and tarry stickiness was almost nine feet tall, and the dog had torn off all the clothing and some of the skin.... It was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very manlike hands and head, and a goatish, chinless face. But the torso and lower parts of the body were teratologically fabulous, so that only generous clothing could ever have enabled it to walk on earth unchallenged or uneradicated.
Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest...had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer fantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-gray tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.
Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth's giant saurian, and terminated in ridged-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws.
"What…is…that?" Kagami choked, the smell coming from it was this indescribable stench from hell.
"Super Mutant?" Konata suggested while covering her own mouth from the assault of its stench.
"No...All Super Mutants are the same species, this is something…" Minami paused to cough and choke like everyone else. "…something new possibly. I've never seen or heard of anything like it. Tsukasa-san, what was it doing in your things?"
Tsukasa looked around guiltily. "I really don't know, I don't know what I would have that it could want." Without asking for her consent, Kagami and Minami dumped the rest of the contents of her messenger back on the concrete floor under the light. Two random hardcover books, several vials of random liquids that only Tsukasa could identify, some energy cell batteries, a pouch with a several hundred bottle caps in it, and one particularly interesting item…
"Where did you get this?" Minami gasped holding up the dreaded Necronomicon.
"I got it from some swamp mutants at a place called Point Lookout, I was supposed get rid of it at some place called the Dunwich Building." Tsukasa, being unable to lie, answered. Minami just stared at her; no words were able to form on her tongue. Some human-chimera-demon bastard child had invaded her home because this girl was in possession of this horrible book written by some insane Arabian prophet.
"You will leave tomorrow and destroy that thing." Minami said sternly, pointing at the black leather-bound book. "You don't want to know what would happen if that fell into the wrong hands." She didn't know much of the details about book itself except tragedy befell almost all who possessed it. Much worse happened to those who read its secrets. She also felt it odd that a book written and bound centuries before the bombs dropped could still be in existence and in such marvelous condition. Not to mention in the damp humidity of Point Lookout. Minami wasn't very superstitious but she could feel evil radiating from it.
Tsukasa's eyes filled with tears as tried to reply. "Oh… I'm sorry I didn't mean to endanger you all. I'll leave tomorrow then…"
"With us of course." Kagami added. "We were going to leave out and find Vault 112 anyways."
CROSSROADS
Konata woke up around 10 AM, later than she had expected, and quickly got her things together.
Down in the commons Tsukasa was lounged across a couch reading something and Kagami was apparently…working out? She had borrowed someones athletic clothes and was busy punching away at a stationary punching bag rooted to the ground. As she approached she got a better look at her longtime friend. Since they arrived in the wasteland Kagami's muscles had become much more developed in a short time, Konata had seen her doing pushups and running on a treadmill in the vault, but now that she was out here putting her skills to the test, her strength had really flourished. Konata had also spotted Kagami doing pushups and situps several nights here in the wastes. It was really paying off and Konata didn't exactly hate the way she looked now.
"Looking good Kagamin~" Konata whistled, Kagami turned around quickly with a deep red blush on her face. She quickly regained her composure though.
"As you may have noticed, the wasteland is pretty unforgiving. So if anything happens that can't be fixed with a weapon or brains I want to be ready." She replied calmly.
"I didn't say anything." Konata said rolling her eyes. Just like Kagami to take everything as an attack, she wasn't lying when she had complimented her.
Kagami slipped out of view and changed back into her armored jumpsuit and gathered her things. "You ready Tsukasa?" she asked and poked at her sister who was fast asleep.
They said their good byes and Konata promised to visit again when she got the chance. She really hoped there would be another chance. They began their journey south under the scorching sun, that day was particularly hot and muggy. To make matters worse, there was next to know shade for them to take shelter under.
"Tsukasa?" Kagami spoke after and hour of silence on the road. Not actually a road, but they knew the general direction since Sojiro had left some details on finding Vault 112. However…
"Do you even know where this Dunwich place is?" She said after Tsukasa looked at her in acknowledgement.
"I…uh…I know it's really far southwest. Like the only building in that area." Tsukasa admitted, Kagami said nothing and messed with her Pip-Boy, trying to find a building like that in that section of the Capital Wastes for her to trace a route to.
After an hour of frustrating labor she finally found what she believed to be her and Tsukasa's definition. Konata's stop was along the way luckily. As always, the journey was uneventful, from what they had heard from people you were in danger when you headed north past the Potomac or into the DC ruins. Everywhere else was relatively death-free if you were careful enough. Which the three girls were. After following the vague directions using landmarks Sojiro left behind, they came to a dilapidated auto shop called "Smith Casey's Garage". Konata opened the door and noticed that the Hiiragi twins were waiting towards the ancient gas pumps.
"You guys coming or what?" Konata asked and gestured them over.
"Sorry but we have our own job to do." Kagami told her with a bit of a forced smile.
"Good luck finding your dad though Kona-chan!" Tsukasa added. Konata looked at them and thanked whatever deity or Old One was watching her for providing the best friends and companions she could have asked for. She sprinted over and embraced both of them with her tiny arms.
"You two are the best friends I could have ever hoped for." Konata swore to them, "I couldn't have gotten here without you two, especially you Kagami. I don't know how you manage to be good at everything, but I don't know where I would have been without you."
"Not to mention without Tsukasa both us probably would be dead." Kagami modestly added, trying to include the younger twin.
"I did help didn't I?" Tsukasa said, blushing.
Konata let the two of them go and turned to face the ruined building. "You two make sure not to die okay?"
SEPARATED
My next two chapters will be written in first person perspective of Kagami and Konata in their separation. Both will be considered chapter 11 since their events run parallel.
I probably should have included Yutaka more in this chapter considering how much of a back story Minami got. All there is to say about Yutaka's past that wasn't said is she was born in Arefu, lived there all her life and occasionally would get these cannibalistic urges. When these happened Yui would hold her until they went away. When Yui moved the urges seemed to go away until one bloody night.
I take no credit for the description of the thing that tried to steal the Necronomicon since that was taken directly from H.P. Lovecrafts "The Dunwich Horror".
Following my pointless tradition of assigning a song. The Running Free by Coheed And Cambria, standard metaphorical lyrics that could be bent to fit this.