Disclaimer: No way, no how.
AN: Ah!! I'm so happy right now I could cry (and now that's something). I love
all of your great reviews so much!!! As of now, 86 reviews!! And to think, at
the beginning, I was guessing around… twenty to thirty… Holy crap! Right now, I
think I'll thank everybody that's reviewed so far… Dragon Faere, Rayo,
Elizabeth, Hououza, Lynn-Minmay, The Fic Critic, Erinamation-limited2-nothing,
Anrui Shino, Queen of Shadows, Duck3, Two-BitGortez, Morrighan of
Crimson and Sable, escawing, computer geek michelle, Nikki, masaki
ai, MC-88, Jero, Eienevine, Viper, Arihat, and Luna-Sarita. Thank you guys!!
You ARE awesome!! Whoa, sometimes I hate spell-check. ^-^
To Dragon Faere: I'm glad you liked my
fic so much! No, Aki wasn't modeled after me; Dawn was (sort of). Aki was at
first supposed to be a devious happy-go-lucky girl, but I thought it'd be cool
to have her hide it behind a dark, silent mask. Actually, I made up Aki's
personality & past as I went along. As for Lee, I pictured him as the cool
guy, but down to earth too. He was modeled a bit after my brother, who's just a
tad more aggressive.
Elizabeth:
Sorry I couldn't e-mail you, I tried but it didn't work for some reason, but I
did get your review! I'm so glad you liked it!!
Hououza: Ooh, that doesn't help!!
^-^ And I should check out that section sometime… sounds good!
Lynn-Minmay: Relena-friendly?
There's a ton of them! Though, some people don't like Relena because they've
read too many fics that make her a bad person, or just not understand her. Not
that much of a deal…
The Fic Critic: Ooh, that wasn't
meant to scare you, it was meant to lessen the number of tomatoes and pumpkins
I have to dodge after you read some of the parts…
Duck3: Oh, so you like dark
things, eh? Let's see how you do with the last few chapters…
Wow, this is a long Author's note! In that case, let's get to the story!!
Black Hair and Gray Eyes
Chapter 17
"Wow, finally, one more week until X-mas
break!" Sylvester whooped and jumped as high as he could in the air, his red hair
flying everywhere. Aki, Dawn, Terran and Saguaro laughed as their friend fell
into the snow.
"Who says X-mas?" Terran asked as he
helped the redhead out of the snow. Sylvester huffed and turned away in
mock-hurt, only to be pushed back in the snow by Saguaro.
"Oh don't pout, you little baby, we were
just kidding." She grabbed Dawn and Terran's hands, and bolting off right after
Dawn grabbed Aki's wrist. "Hurry up! I don't want to get snowballed by him!"
Aki trotted along as her friends led her away, feeling a bit sluggish today.
They ran through a few trees, Terran running into one, before Saguaro finally
stopped and hid behind two trees growing unnaturally close together.
Dawn watched, amused, as their friends
began to make snowballs for a "counter attack", but her attention quickly
turned towards Aki, who was unusually more silent than usual.
"What's wrong Aki?" The black haired
girl looked up, trying to look clueless. "Oh come on… I know there's something
wrong." Aki sighed, slumping her shoulders slightly as she moved to lean
against another tree.
"I just have this gut feeling that
something's not right." Dawn sat down beside her.
"Oh? Like what?" Aki shook her head.
"I don't know…"
*~*~*~*~*
Later on that day, Aki walked down the
halls to her new class, for once not surrounded by her friends. It had been a
month since her parents had started their relationship, though they never
really dated. Of course, it had only been about two weeks since Heero was out
of the hospital. Quite surprising he stayed through until scheduled released
date.
But Aki's thoughts weren't on that, it
was on meeting Chantelle again since… that summer when Aki had first moved into
the Peacecraft mansion. She missed her orphan friends, although there was a lot
here for her as well.
But since she was so deep in her
thoughts, Aki didn't notice the two burly men she walked into not too long
afterwards. This effectively scattered some of her books around, and knocked
her to the floor.
"Hey kid! Watch where y'er going!" The
big man with dark brown hair turned to her, snarling. But Aki attention soon
went from the man to the pieces of paper he was holding. She recognized the
shapes pretty quickly.
"Why are you guys holding a pentomino
puzzle?" She looked at the familiar shapes made up of five squares that formed
a rectangle. The two men looked at each other before turning to her.
"Hey kid, how do you know what this is?"
Aki looked at them as if the answer were obvious.
"It was in one of the history books I
was looking through. Pentomino; an ancient Chinese puzzle game made up of
twelve pieces that each consist of five squares each. The object of the game is
to fill a given shape with those pieces. A difficult game, if not amusing. It's
like Tangrams." She looked at them again. "Now for my question; what are you
doing with the puzzle?"
"None of your business. Now, who are you
parents girl?" The man looked down at her, trying to intimidate. But Aki knew
better than to panic. And she knew better than to just blurt out who she was.
"Why?" She swore she could see the guy's
veins pumping out of their usual place.
"Never mind that. You can't see it, can
you? That's the Vice Foreign Minister's kid, Akira." The second man, with
blonde hair, pulled the other one out of Aki's range of close-view. "You got
some brains, girl, do you mind coming with us for some questioning." How stupid
did they think she was, even after that little scene?
"Sorry, but I have a class to get to."
She walked away from the two men and picked up her books. There was definitely
something suspicious about those two… she'd have to follow them. But she'd pay
the consequences for it later.
Sticking her stuff in her locker, Aki
pulled out yet another knife, for protection purposes, and a small bag that
wouldn't get in the way. Inside it, she had a tracking device, a listening
device, and some other knick-knacks she stole from Preventers HQ. Old habits
die hard.
Hurrying back to the spot she had seen
the two men, Aki followed them outside and into the parking lot. They walked to
a van, which Aki presumed to be theirs, and she touched the tracking device to
it, just in case.
"A girl, thirteen no less, who knows
enough to know a pentomino at first glance, and the daughter of the VFM too.
She must have something valuable in that head of hers." The blonde man said as
he slid into the left side. Taking this as a sign that they were leaving, she
touched the receiver of the two listening devices into the crack in the two
doors of the back of the van.
'Let's hope this works.' Climbing onto
the bumper, she waited for the vehicle to back up, and lucky for her, it went
right close to some bushes. She jumped into the leaves and prayed that the
noise didn't attract them. Aki placed the other listening device in her ear as
she crouched inside the mass of branches and leaves.
"What was that?" Clear as day. Good
thing too. Not so good, was the fact that they had noticed her jump.
"Probably just a squirrel or something."
Impudent fools. But then again, they could have nothing to do with anything,
and she could've just lost a half of an expensive device. Oh well, she still
had the tracker.
"Don't you think that we should check it
out?" Oh please, no.
"Nah, there won't be anyone out here at
this time, everyone's in the school. Now hurry up and drive you nut." Aki
sighed in relief and pulled out her bag, trying to find the radar for the
tracker. It was a dark green circle with antennae and a few little buttons.
"If you say so boss." The car started to
move, and Aki was engulfed in dark smoke the exhaust pipe blew out. Coughing,
she tried to keep quiet, though the sound of the car would drown out a lot of
noises she made.
"Normally, I'd tell you to get a
muffler, but you just saved me," Muttering to no one in particular, she waited
for the van to get out of sight before standing up. She tapped the listening
device, and heard noises through it, though they weren't voices. They were the
sound of the car. "Argh, never mind you dopes, get a muffler!" She threw the
earpiece in her bag and went into the building.
There was no evidence that the two men
were up to something, but they were suspicious. She knew that the earpiece had
a recorder in it, and decided she could listen to the messages later, but for
now… she had to worry about class.
*~*~*~*~*
"Heero, what are you doing?" Relena
watched her bodyguard/boyfriend as he paced back and forth in the office. His
arm hadn't yet regained full capabilities so he was supposed to try and lay off
on the movement a bit, though it didn't seem like he was prepared to follow
orders.
"The school called. It seems that Aki
has been skipping a class," He stated, way more calm than Relena would've
liked. But the fact that he had waited to tell her this annoyed her.
"And why did you not tell me this
earlier instead of pacing around?" She stood up, waiting for his answer. He
looked at her blankly, before shrugging.
"I was never good with words." She
glared at him for a moment before sighing. 'Impossible.'
"Let's go." At first, it seemed like he wasn't going to come, since he still
stood there in that same spot when Relena looked over her shoulder. "She's your
daughter too… come one!" he grunted before following.
*~*~*~*~*
'Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!' Aki
repeated over and over in her head as she ran. 'I can't be too late! She'll
never accept my bathroom excuse!!' Lady luck wasn't exactly on her side, since
her foot slipped and she fell into a load of dirt. She practically landing on
her face, her locket flung out in front of her.
"I… don't… believe… it." Aki stared in
disbelief as her locket glinted a few times then started to glow. "It's too
soon… just when everything…" Sitting up with the locket in her hand, she
flipped it open, gasping at what was inside. "Everything was just so perfect… I
don't believe it…"
*~*~*~*~*
I'm gonna
leave it off there… hee hee,
aren't I evil?? Sorry about the slightly late update… I've been… preoccupied.
So, what is with that locket of hers? What will happen in the next chapter?? I
mean, Aki's "skipping" and Relena/Heero are coming. Dun dun
dun…. Kill me later! Maybe you'll find out next time.