Alright, next chapter! Get ready for a serious curve ball guys, because the plots about to thicken! You're not gonna believe this!
Chapter 11
The last week and a half had been spent playing hide and seek. The seekers being everyone in the palace while Kuma remained hidden.
It had been a tremendous shock for them all to hear what Kuma had done. They had barely had a chance to utter a single sound before Kuma had yanked Red out of the wall with out great tug and left the throne room moving faster than they had imagined she could. No had been able to react fast enough to stop her and by the time they had even tried Kuma was already gone.
None of them had wanted to believe what they had just heard but when Chie who had come running to get them had confirmed it all later Haruka first desire had been to capture and detain Kuma as a safety precaution. Natsuki had been adamantly against it.
"Kuma is just a child Haruka!" Natsuki argued.
But Haruka had been adamant as well. "Well that 'child' has already admitted to committing murder of the highest degree! Do you really want someone so dangerous running around the palace freely? What if she decides to try and kill us too?!"
"She was under orders–!" Natsuki tried to defend.
"ORDERS THAT SHE COULD HAVE IGNORED AND REFUSED!!!" Haruka bellowed.
"No, she couldn't." Elliot interjected quietly.
"What? Of course she could have! She–"
"No, she couldn't." Elliot insisted. "Any and all Rogues who have ever dared to go against a direct order from the Syndicate united has been execute immediately. They have no choicewhat so ever when it comes to following orders. They either do as they are told or die and even if they are not killed they are beaten to within an inch of their life to make they sorry for their insubordination."
"So she–?"
"It was a choice between kill or be killed for her, and that, is no choice at all."
"Chie?" Shizuru asked softly.
"My sources have already confirmed it all, Shizuru-Oneesama." The boyish Otome answered somberly.
"I see, and when did this happen?"
"According to my sources, nearly eight years ago."
"What?" Haruka demanded. "That's impossible! Kuma's only twelve so she couldn't–"
"Kuma will be thirteen this year come winter meaning that she was about five or six at the time." Chie cut her off.
"But a child that young couldn't possibly–!"
Elliot broke in. "A Rogues instinct to fight goes well beyond any human's understanding. From the time they can stand and walk they can fight. Their instinct to kill in order to survive is as deeply rooted within them as it is in any other create on the planet."
"That's not all." Yohko added.
"What? How can there be more?" Mai demanded as she hugged Mikoto more to comfort herself than the younger HiME.
"I've been busy studying Kuma's blood work for a long time now. There was something about it that just didn't check out so I ran multiple test to try and sort it out." Yohko looked them each in the eye seriously. "There are nanites in her blood."
Various shouts of "What?!" "That's Impossible!!" "How?!" rose up instantly.
"There's more besides that, as I said Kuma's blood is strange, it acts, looks, smells, and even feels like normal blood but it isn't normal at all."
"I'm not even gonna ask how you know what it smells and feels like." Nao quipped.
Yohko threw Nao and exasperated look. "Kuma isn't the only one with a fair sense of smell Nao and when you spend years treating bloody wounds you–"
"Yeah, yeah Sensei, I get your point. But what's so weird about the brats blood?"
"An Otomes blood does not change in its biophysical makeup what so ever. It is simply blood with nanites. Even an Ex-Meisters Otomes blood work does not change after the nanites have stopped working. The nanites simply break down and disintegrate and are naturally flush out of the body later without leaving a single trace of their previous existence behind."
"And the kids blood is different how?" Nao was frowning. "And if she really does have nanites then where's her GEM? I haven't seen her where one even once."
"That's just it."
"What? What the hell are you getting at woman?"
"I believe her blood IS the GEM."
"WHAT?!" Several of voices rose once more. "HOW THE HELL IS THAT POSSIBLE!?"
But Yohko didn't answer any of their questions. Instead she turned to look at Chie. "I believe it's your turn now Chie-San."
"Mm." Chie nodded, then turning to face the large keyboard she started typing and as she typed several windows of information and pictures popped up until they filled the screen. She began to talk as she continued typing. "Yohko came to me when she realized that something was off with Kuma's blood and asked me to do a bit of research to see if I could find an explanation for it. And the more I dug into it, the more I began to realize that there was so much more to our little Rogue than what I first suspected. This," She punched in a key and a picture of a man who looked to be in his early thirties popped up. He was very dark with very short black hair and dark brown eyes. His face was covered in tiny white scars. "is Takeshi Ryubumon the previously reigning Crime Lord of the Central Territories of the Free Nations and the false father of Takehiko Kumabushi."
"False?" Natsuki said. "You mean he isn't Kuma's real father?"
"No, he isn't." Chie confirmed. "Nor, is he the true owner of the sword Akai Shi."
"Then who is?"
Chie didn't answer instead she started talking again as if on one had asked the question. "During his lifetime Takeshi Ryubumon was said to have taken on a great many lovers. One of which just so happened to be one of the six wives of the previous Archduke of Schwartz, Bel Glan De Artai, and Bel Glan was a very possessive man in his lifetime. In retaliation to Ryubumon's apparent insult against him Bel Glan launched a war against the Free Nations and one of the earliest casualties of that war had been Ryubumon's current Gypsy lover and their unborn child. Bel Glan's greatest crime in Ryubumon's eyes officialized their rivalry until both their deaths."
"But what does this have to do with Kuma?"
"Everything, just listen." She started typing again and Ryubumon's picture was soon replaced by a photo of an ominous looking building surrounded by a forest blanketed with snow. More photo's of that same building came up along with several other photos of the inside of an oppressive feeling laboratory filled with multiple liquid filled cylinders and other various strange equipment also popped up on screen. "During the long war Schwartz completely obsessed with creating the perfect living weapon by expanding on their Valkyrie technology and their knowledge of the HiMEs of the Old World. By combining these two they hoped to create the ultimate warrior."
"How did they do this?" Shizuru asked, though she already suspected she knew what they had done.
"Not all casualties of war are due to death, there is nearly always someone left behind be it a spouse, sibling, friend, or even a child." Chie started typing again, her fingers flying across the great keyboard. "In the beginning they experimented on adults, nearly all were failures. Those who didn't not die became horrible and uncontrollable monsters, and even if they did not transform immediately they eventually would." Several more pictures popped, some were the gruesome photographs of bodies with their stomachs torn wide open, their limbs twisted in excruciating pain as their expressions reflexed the agony of their death.
"Dear gods." Mai covered her mouth looking horrified.
Nao squinted at the screen. "It, it looks like something came out of them." Her face scrunched up in disgust.
"That's because something did." Chie typed once more bringing up more pictures, these were of grotesque looking bio-mechanical monsters not all dissimilar to an Orphan or a Slave. The creatures were a dark grey color with putrid looking grey-green veins all over their bodies. They're eyes were a terrible ugly yellow eyes which rolled up in their bulbous and distorted heads and their large horrible mouths were wide open as if silently screaming. Their bodies tall gangly looking things with hunched backs and short bowed legs, their arms were so long that their fist dragged along the ground on they're knuckles. In a way, they almost resembled terrible and grotesquely disfigured monstrous human beings which only added to the horror of their appearance. "These creates are neither Slave nor Orphan, in the Free Nations they are known as Witches are very few things have the ability to stand up to there immense power."
That rang a bell. "Kuma mentioned Witches once." Mikoto suddenly piped up.
"I'm not surprised." Chie replied distractedly as she went on typing. "These Witches are the results of Schwartz multiple failures and at one point the experiments all escaped. Now they run loose with in the Free Nations traveling in packs and destroying everything in their path."
"How many were there?" Nina asked unable to remain silent.
"No one knows, could be less than a dozen or well over a hundred. The exact number of these experiments was never recorded, or if they ever were that the file was lost when they escaped. Those failed experiments were abandoned due to their unstable and uncontrollable nature in favor of a new more controllable experiment. The scientist theorized that the reason the experiments failed was due to the fact that an adults body was to settled and over developed to be altered so completely. And so they started over from scratch, but this time," Chie kept on typing and brought up several close up photos of the cylinders filled with cloudy yellow liquid and in the middle of that liquid floated a small figure curled in the fetal position. Several cords of varying sizes were connected all over the tiny figures body, though there was one thick line connected to a mask covering their nose and mouth and another smaller line seem to pass through their chest and into what had to be their heart. "they used children in their experiments. And with the war still in full swing there was no shortage of orphans."
"Kuma–!" Erstin couldn't bring herself to finish her vocal thought.
"Must have been one of these experimental children." Chie stated gravely.
Erstin buried her face in Nina's chest at that. Nina immediately wrapped her arms around her distraught friend. Erstin was extremely fond of children and in the short time that she had come to know Kuma had grown quite fond of the young stormy tempered Rogue. And to be honest, so had Nina herself.
"What did they do?" Natsuki's expression was cold as a glacier and serious as steel. At one time some scientists had tried to take her sister to experiment on her and Natsuki had torn their foundation to the ground with Shizuru help once the Otome had come in answer to her call. It was only after they had investigated that they had found the MAID unite Miyu who now served Natsuki's family and was Alyssa constant companion and protector.
"Using their Valkyrie technology and knowledge of GEMs they tried to create a false HiME who operated under the power of a new kind of GEM known as a JEWEL though what JEWEL stands for I couldn't tell you."
"Unimportant. What did they do to those children?"
"Well to explain, a JEWEL is an altered Meister level GEM in a liquid form, almost like how mercury is a liquid metal at room temperature at least. Only rather than being a liquid only at room temperature a JEWEL can only remain a liquid within the human body. But if that body's temperature were to raise to hyperthermia levels or drop into the realm of hypothermia, well, the result of that could possibly be disastrous. These JEWELs were injected into the experimental children along with nanites. Unfortunately the children's bodies were completely incapable of withstanding the immense power of the JEWEL and soon died. The scientists grew increasingly frustrated until Schwartz army accidentally captured a live Rogue who promptly underwent an extremely close study by the scientists. In the end they hypothesized that with their unique physiology a Rogues body would be able to withstand a JEWELs incredible power but it had to be introduced to the body very early in order to accommodate to the foreign substance so that their bodies could develop until they could support it." Chie began typing again and brought up the photo of a well known ruin located beyond the ruling of any of the great monarchies and well beyond the Free Nations.
Haruka frowned. "What do the old HiME ruins have to do with any of this?"
"Everything." Chie answered. " Because in the ruins are the original archives dedicated to all the ancient HiMEs from the time of the Old World. It was here that they found the DNA of several of these ancient HiMEs. And as we all very well know, all of todays current living HiME are descended from these ancient HiME, as are many of the Otomes." Chie nodded at Shizuru and Mai here. "Originally Schwartz's scientists had intended to use the ancient DNA to design their own altered clones of the ancients, but, that plan was abandoned when they realized that the ancient DNA samples were far to unstable to be used.
"So what happened?" Nao asked impatiently.
"Somehow they managed to get there hands on the DNA of some of the living descendants of the ancients and using some top secret experimental technique combined it with the DNA of a newly captured Wylder in order to create hundreds of their own genetically engineered Rogue/HiME hybrids who they cultivated in an artificial womb and developed within those pods. As the children developed the scientist introduced first the nanites then the JEWEL itself, one JEWEL per child. More than half of these children died while only a very small few survived, and only one of those survivors is still alive to this day."
"Kuma." Natsuki murmured.
"Kuma." Chie nodded.
"Then how is she here and not there?"
"Well at one point Ryubumon and the Free Nation armies made it that far into Schwartz and ransacked the laboratory. Many of the surviving experiments died in the attack when Free Nations' soldiers took them from their pods but Kuma somehow survived. From that moment on she was adopted as Ryubumon's child and raised to be his son and heir."
"Does she even know?"
"I doubt Ryubumon would have been willing to tell her."
"And the sword?" Haruka just wanted it to be cleared up.
Chie began typing once more. "I did some research on it and there is no historical evidence that it ever existed before Ryubumon ever got it. I think that Akai Shi is actually Kuma's Element."
"But it never goes away! How can it be an Element?" Nao demanded.
"I think it's like Miroku," Chie nodded her head at Mikoto. "in that it permanently stays 'on' and doesn't have to turn off."
"Then where's her Child?"
"Kuma might not have one because in a way she's an Otome." Chie explained as she started typing again.
"You said that those children, that Kuma was made from the DNA of one of the Ancient HiMEs, but which one?" Haruka asked.
"I never said that Kuma was made from one." Chie corrected still typing.
"What?"
"Yohko took over. "When Chie told me about all this I asked her not to tell anyone until we had all the facts or all that we could find at least. I also asked her to help me get a hold of all the medical files I could to cross reference them with Kuma's DNA to figure out who's DNA she was made from."
"And?" Mai waited.
"We did this because technically speaking Kuma is made more from their the ancient's descendants rather than the ancients themselves."
"And?!" Nao was getting seriously tired of all the drama.
"Two matches came up every time. As far as my tests can tell me, as far as any medical test will ever be able to tell, Kuma is the biological child of two descendants."
"So who's kid is she then?!" Haruka demanded feeling feed up by now.
Chie punched in one final key and two pictures popped up. They were of Natsuki and Shizuru. "She's yours. Both, of yours"
**AN**
HO-LY shit.
I'll try to update soon but I NEED to hear what you guys have to say about everything. It pushes me to update regularly.
Readers: She looks nothing like them!
virgo: She kinda has Shizuru's hair color and her eyes are sort of similar too?...
Readers: Light brown is not the same as red you idiot! And what about Natsuki?
virgo: Is the whole 'quick to glare and slow to smile' thing not obvious enough for you?
Readers: NO!!!
virgo: Ok, ok, I'll try and work on it!