Written by Hajimeru Rinko
Full Summary: The fantasy adventures of Sawada Tsunayoshi, who ventures to seek out the past that he had forgotten as a child. When he sets out, he is chased by people who claimed to know his 'past'. Who is he actually? Will he find out and is he prepared to face the burden that would be in front of him? AU and OC.
Note: I do not own KHR!
Here's chapter 14. Hope it didn't fail.
A Fantasy Tale Chapter 14: A Journey Part 7
"Where you boys are going?" An old man asked the three as he served them food.
They were resting at the Hyuuchi Bar, since they arrived at the town safely, but not without damage, as they have to throw out the banana supply due to monkeys chasing their carriage. Tsuna almost had a phobia of monkeys, but for now, he's fine. For what happened to the monkeys, please imagine Gokudera cooking some marshmallows and replace the marshmallows with monkeys.
"We are going to the port city." Tsuna answered.
"I see. Then be careful of the Witch's Forest." The waiter advised them.
"The Witch's…what?" Yamamoto didn't get it.
"The Witch's Forest. It's a haunted place where all the trees are more like thorn-like and conifer-like plants. Some rumours were going on saying that a witch lives there and would catch anyone who trespasses her territory. Common ones include her cooking the person, feeding them frog legs and eyeballs, and feeding the person to a monster. Though, it's kind of strange, since it started about…five years ago." The old man explained, and then hurriedly went back to his work.
"Witches? They don't exist, you know." Gokudera commented, and Yamamoto nodded.
"But maybe the witch just uses normal magic like everybody." Tsuna pointed, before returning to eating their food.
At IMAM
Rinko checked the doll properly when Rina came in.
"What is that?" Rina asked coldly, well, when she was speaking in a cheerful voice?
"Something I built." Rinko said as she puts the wig.
"Where's the eyes?" Rina pointed at the empty eye sockets.
"This is a robot." Rinko claimed, quietly putting voice chords in the doll's throat.
"Robot? Haha, very funny." Rina sarcastically insulted and sat on her bed.
Rinko ignored her and installed the eye sockets, giving her doll sight. Next, she had to put in batteries too. At the side of the doll's left arm was labelled '01'. As she puts in the magic batteries, Rinko sees that the doll needs a makeover after everything has been installed. Colouring the skin and finalizing the doll's eye colour, Rinko opens her closet to look for the clothes she sewn earlier.
"What are you looking for?" Rina asked Rinko.
"Well, some clothes I've sewn back then." Rinko got some clothes out and closed the closet, heading to the doll and dressing her up.
And the doll that looked at her, had double ponytails and eyes of the same colour.
Back at Tsuna and company
"Hmm…we might not be staying for long so probably we will find short odd jobs." Tsuna held a piece of paper in his hands.
"Okay Tsuna." Yamamoto headed off to look for a short job.
"Agreed, Juudaime." Gokudera said after Yamamoto and followed Tsuna to the job board at the left.
Among the job requests, Tsuna sees an old piece of paper attached to the board, torn and withering away.
"What is that?"Tsuna asked, as they couldn't read it.
"Oh you mean that? It's from the witch." A man walked from the butcher stall.
"Eh?"
"The witch posted it here four years ago, and the request is insane." The man said as he looked at the paper, which its contents are fading and could not be seen.
"Is it…chopping up people for limbs or digging into people for intestines?" Gokudera immediately guessed, and Tsuna plus Yamamoto felt like throwing up.
"Nah…it was asking for a young boy to go sing the 'Servant of Evil' for her. But it also put, "If you are not the one, I'll kill you." Or something like that. Anyway, every mother forbade their son from going to her in case the witch kidnaps them after this request got up."
"Oh…"
"Well I gotta get back to work. See ya boys, and don't get involved. Also, better not take the route pass that cursed place." The man left, going back to work.
The boys watched as the man went back to work.
At IMAM
"Rina, do you learn music magic before?" Rinko asked as she put back a book into the shelf.
"Yes, but my father cut me off from the lessons and forced me to come here." Rina said quickly, avoiding Rinko's gaze.
"What happened?" Rinko asked worriedly as she walked over.
"What should I tell you?" Rina turned away from her, crossing her arms.
Rinko didn't mind and went back to do her work. Maybe she would go ask Takamachi-sensei to tell her more about Rina. As she went to the window, she sees Takamachi-sensei training the girls, and probably she'd have to ask later.
Back at Tsuna
"Here you go." Tsuna handed a little boy his flowers after keeping the money in the cashier.
Tsuna took up a job at the florist, as the assistant was sick.
"Thanks! Now I can give my mum a present!" The boy exclaimed as he received the flowers.
"Is your family poor?" Tsuna asked the boy, seeing that he was dressed in rags.
"Yes. My father builds things for a living while my mother sews for others. My brother got taken away by the war." The boy had difficulty saying about his brother, and Tsuna felt sad for him, seeing that the brother was the closest one to the boy.
"Well, I hope your brother comes home and he'll enjoy the special occasion with you." Tsuna happily told him, cheering the boy up a lot and he went out the shop.
'The poor boy has no playmates to play with. And it's war, war, war. Why is there war in the first place?' Tsuna thought as the owner of the shop approached him.
"Did you forget what is the occasion coming soon?" She said, and Tsuna turned to look at her curiously. "It's Mother's Day. The boy wanted to buy his mother flowers." It hit Tsuna with a pang. Of course, it was Mother's day! What child would buy a flower for? Why did he forget?
Still, Tsuna wasn't really surprised. He won't really buy anything for that 'fat' mother of his whenever it's Mother's Day since three years ago. But somehow, it struck him hard. Was it about that 'fat' mother or was it about someone else? He clenched his forehead, suddenly remembering an image of a woman with short light brown hair, wearing a blue, ball dress, sitting in a garden. It flashed for a moment, and the woman was smiling at him. Just… who is she?
At Gokudera and Yamamoto
"Jeez, there's nothing for us to do." Gokudera said, crossing his arms.
"Well then, let's fix up the carriage. There's some spare wood we got from Darian's place." Yamamoto hopped off, taking a hammer and some wood.
"Great idea to spend the time. The first time you actually give a good idea." Gokudera commented with a little happy tone in his voice.
"When was I ever stupid?" Yamamoto asked.
"Ever since you were born, mortal." Gokudera answered in a ghostly voice.
"Stop calling me human from a occult view and help me out!" Yamamoto shouted loudly, and for once, Gokudera shut up about his occult stuff.
Earlier, when there wasn't any jobs, Gokudera kept on showing Yamamoto his occult collection, books, and some "recipes" for such occult things. Yamamoto, at first, thought it was fun, but later, he got annoyed and almost puked at the contents of the collection too. What it involved, are censored for teenagers and kids as they will develop a phobia on the normal version of the collection. This is what happened to Yamamoto since he got freaked out by a normal spoon due to the ghoul spoon.
Hours later
After he finished, the owner paid Tsuna some Piseces and Tsuna went to do some shopping. As he walked through the crowd, a mysterious stranger followed him, with the boy unaware of his presence.
"Here's your bread." The stallholder passed Tsuna some bread while Tsuna passed her some coins.
As the stallholder counted her coins, she sees the mysterious person moving around in circles and curiously wondered if the person was a wanted criminal. Not minding that, she returned the change to Tsuna and Tsuna left. And surprisingly, the mysterious person followed him. 'Hmm…Shadow magic. How unexpected. And I'm even surprised that there are more pedophiles recently who just love to kidnap brunettes.' The stallholder thought with a bored face when a customer approached her for bread.
Tsuna hurriedly walked, as it was getting dark soon. After turning around the corner the stranger followed him, finding no one. Tsuna then suddenly attacked from above, stepping on the head, and jumping off, running for his life. Before he could get the person off his trail, the stranger managed to get a tracker on Tsuna's back, which Tsuna couldn't feel and he carried on running. The stranger stopped after that, before leaving the scene. After running for a while, Tsuna panted, wondering if the person had stopped chasing him.
'Crap…I guess I need to hurry.' Tsuna thought, turning to go back to Yamamoto and Gokudera.
By the time he got there, Yamamoto and Gokudera finished reconstructing the carriage and Tsuna climbed in from the back.
"Back?"
"I got chased, you know."
"Oh. Not the Knightmares again?"
"Are you talking about them?" Gokudera emphasized at the word 'them', and it sounded serious.
"Why? Anything wrong?" Yamamoto asked.
"I heard that the Knightmares are a peacekeeping group, not a kidnapping group." Gokudera commented, putting his hand on his chin.
"It's assassinate, Gokudera-kun." Tsuna corrected him and he turned to him. "They had been trying to kill me for a few months!" Tsuna shouted.
"Why didn't you say that earlier?" Gokudera asked, getting a little upset.
"We didn't have a chance to tell you." Tsuna pointed.
"I could have applied a Protection Order!" Gokudera shouted.
"As if you could apply one for a peasant, because they can apply one for themselves." Yamamoto had hit Gokudera hard.
'That's kind of a good point…really.' Tsuna agreed with him. Sometimes, if you want to make humour, it's really not funny if you make the character lack common sense. 'They don't seem like a bickering couple now. It's a best friend pair now.' Tsuna thought, thinking of the book where two boys work together to save their friend from a dragon, but at first, they fought, but then reconciled together. At this rate, they might as well become a gag pair.
At Kasumi
Kasumi was doing her homework when her brother Kaito stepped in.
"I suppose you are free?" Kaito asked Kasumi.
"Yes. Was there any requests?" Kasumi said, not looking up as her brother approached.
"A friend of mine requested for music magic and technology."
"Can't you do it?"
"I would, but I got others which are way bigger and besides, it's best to get experience." Kaito explained, and Kasumi agreed as Kaito puts the paper on the table.
Considering that their mother asked Kaito to start working for their information organization, it's expected that Kasumi is also going to follow in his footsteps, same with her younger siblings. The rule was, 'You can request for information, but you must also contribute information in order to do so.', and since Kasumi hasn't paid back for the royal family information gathering, she don't need to reject.
"This should be easy…" Kasumi commented as she looked up and down the task sheet, rocking her chair.
"And don't you dare give useless information like last time. This one is from a friend, and you better do it well." Kaito warned, and left her room as Kasumi stopped rocking her chair.
Kasumi rolled her eyes, obviously remembering what happened last time when the man barged into the room, saying that the information was insufficient. If it were to be a friend, Kaito would personally take her to the place she hates most; the basement and leave her in a special place with the things she hates to see the most, and she wouldn't want to suffer. Kasumi then looked on the top of the page. It read: 'Requested by: Sawada Rinko'. The surname sounds familiar…where did she hear it from?
Back at Tsuna and company at night
"Okay, we are done packing up." Gokudera said, washing the sweat off his forehead.
"That's good. Go on the carriage first."
"Hey Tsuna, there's something I'm kind of feeling uncomfortable about now."
"What is it?"
"If someone chase you but failed, wouldn't they implant a tracker on you?" Yamamoto asked, and it struck Tsuna that he had lowered his guard now.
'Maybe I was thinking of running away so badly that I've forgotten.' Tsuna thought as he gritted his teeth.
"Strangely, this stranger has got to the weirdest ever." Yamamoto said, kneeling down behind Tsuna.
"Why?" Tsuna asked.
"Because there is a Smiley Face-like thing on your back." Yamamoto pointed, and Tsuna tried to look at his back, while Gokudera came out to see it.
End of Chapter 14
I worked hard in order to update fast. Unfortunately, I can't think of any more filler, so we might get a little bit closer to the real plot. And no, they won't go into the Witch's Forest that fast. Plus, I might have made the characters OOC. From the poll, it seems only FOUR people voted. Majority chose neutral. Well, I've been thinking up of theories and many much.
This week's chapter(279) was very warming and heartbreaking. Uni, I hope you're in a good place right now.
~Hajimeru Rinko