Author Says:
Chapter 2 has been sitting on my hardrive for a while now.
For the longest time, my computer was out of commission, and school
and other important matters in my life took first priority over the internet
_and_ my website, if anyone was wondering about that ^_^
Here it is though, and I _do_ plan to continue it. I can't tell all you guys enough
who emailed me about this story how thankful I am. Your support for this
little project is great motivation to me; not just for this too, but for everything
else that I happen to write.
Email me at my new address: oniko_chan@hotmail.com
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Chapter 2
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The bustling sounds of kids playing in the small yard surrounding the school
building caused Seiko to momentarily cringe as she stepped through the tall
gates that encompassed it. A jail cell, that's what it was, she bitterly thought
to herself. It had been at least a year since she had been forced to sit at a table
and learn the principles of math and space while bored, unwilling students
nudged her to pass on the lastest piece of gossip going around. Or the teachers
long, droning voice that almost made her a willing accomplice with her classmates
childish requests. Needless to say, she hadn't missed it one bit.
In fact, she was half tempted to just turn away from the whole ordeal and go lay
under some trees until the final bell rang and she could safely make her way
back without too much conflict at home. What did she need math for anyways?
Besides using it to save a few bucks in the market place, there wasn't all that
much she could do with it. Then Tori's voice rang through her mind for the
hundreth time that morning, reminding her that she honestly couldn't care less
if Seiko became well educated or not. It was all the mind-numbing gossip and
playful nudging she wanted Seiko to partake in.
What had she called it? Oh yeah. Socializing.
Great. She'd rather learn the advantages and theories of triangulation.
It wasn't that she couldn't see the importance of it. On the contrary, she had
constantly berated herself for that particular weakness of hers she had
developed over the years. It was just that she had stopped caring a long time
ago. After all, it wasn't as though she hadn't tried.
She sighed and shifted the pack from one shoulder to the other as it's weight
started to abuse her muscles. Across the school yard a shriek rang out through
the air, drawing the attention of most of the school yard. A girl around Seiko's
age, now budding fifteen years, ran down the grassy path that dipped down
into the yard from the right side of the grounds. Starry-eyed and blushing
red, the girl ran as fast as humanly possibly considering the restraints of a
long, spring dress that spoke of pink flowers and flowed slightly about her legs.
Behind her, a boy that Seiko recognized as one of Gaitou's buddies, ran after
her, a cheeky grin playing out across his high cheek bones, arms out as if to
grab her from around the waist. Screaming some more, the girl playfully
ducked behind the closest trees, peeking out from the thick trunk to bat her
long, dark eyelashes. It was like a scene out of a bad romance novel. Seiko
inwardly groaned, and decided that spending the day under a grove of trees
was sounding better and better. If anything, it would give her a chance to
catch up on the sleep she had had missed. Or more like the sleep she hadn't
gotten at all last night. She turned away from the whole scene and walked
back towards the gates from whence she had came.
"Seiko?"
Alas, the heavens were frowning on her this morning it seemed. She glanced
back over her shoulder to see the hormone ridden boy watching her quizzically,
the fair maiden waiting anxiously behind the tree momentarily forgotten.
"Uh?"
"Ha! You don't remember me, do you?"
Seiko shrugged and turned around, giving him a small sheepish grin in apology.
"It's been a while"
The girl pouted, but crept from behind the tree to stand beside her pursuer
and examine the black haired student that had appeared from out of nowhere.
She took in with a slightly critical eye the baggy silk pants that were usually
only worn by men, and the lose, feminine shirt that was about two sizes too
big for her. The long black hair that would normally come down to her waist
was twisted and tied up to the back of her head with various pins, one being a
small gold star that Tori said stole attention away from the rest of the messy
black ones that held everything together in an almost vain attempt. Feeling
completely unthreatened by this new arrival, she bowed in greeting and embraced
the black haired girl, frowning a little as the muscles beneath her welcoming
arms tensed in alarm. She pulled away and edged back towards her place beside
her handsome pursuer. "I'm Hisha. This is Rikoro"
Seiko nodded politely. "I'm sure we've met before"
"oh?"
Rikoro gently nudged her in the ribs. "C'mon! Don't tell me you don't remember
the number one champion of the lunch hour rumbles?"
"What?"
"You know, the future "knight" of kinmokusei? The girl who could beat two
guys at once in kombat using her 'almighty sword of justice?'. She kicked that
new guy's ass when he made some stupid comment about Jenna's haircut."
"Oh... I see..." Suffice to say, Hisha didn't look all that impressed.
"Uh..." Seiko fidgeted uncomfortably. Geesz, had she really been that full of
herself as a kid?. "Actually I think it was my almighty stick of justice... and
I don't do stuff like that anymore."
Rikoro laughed, "Ahh c'mon. What do you do now? collect dolls?". He
raised his fists in front of him and fell back into a defensive stance, leaning
back and throwing a small jab that almost hit his annoyed companion in the
nose as she backed away. "I bet you still got some of it in ya! C'mon and
show me what you got!"
Ugh, there was that word again. Seiko's irritability started to rise. What kind
of person did they take her for now? The urge to give him a good backfist to
the nose was overwhelming. Instead she easily avoided a sloppy ridgehand
to her head and slapped away a powerful, but much too slow uppercut to her
gut.
"I think I have more honor than that now!", she snapped, feeling her voice
rise to match the annoyance that was climbing higher by every second.
"Than to pick a fight with some kid at school just for the hell of it!"
By the look of offence on Rikoro's face, she guessed that hadn't come out
right at all. Much less honorable.
His face twisted from embaressment to disgust and finally to barely controlled
anger that bubbled just barely beneath the surface. "Not good enough?", he
asked. His words dripped with sarcasm and a bitterness that instantly made her
regret ever opening her mouth at all. "Am I just some stupid urban kid not
worthy of the all high and mighty soldier of the school vacant lot?"
He spat at her feet and walked away, with Hisha close at his feet. Yes, this was
going to be long day indeed.
* * *
Things only continued to go down hill for the rest of the afternoon. Besides all the
extra attention she got from the teacher for being behind the rest of the grade
(ugh, math...) the attention she got from the rest of the students was unnerving
and not at all welcoming. News about her little slip up that morning had gotten
around in no time and the glares she got from some of the boys and girls made her
squirm.
The whispers she did her best to block out for the most part. What was it they
called her? Arrogant, lofty, snobbish and a whole bunch of other words that
basically meant the same thing. Well she defenitely wasn't exactly full of pride
at the moment, that was for sure. The bitchy tomboy bit the had overheard the
girls call her during their break had just wanted to make her snort with derisive
laughter.
Physical Ed. was the worst class of all. While she was fine with keeping to herself
in a corner and zoning out during lessons, P.E. meant she had to move around a
participate. Playing sports was just fine with her. Yokou and her mom had
helped her develop quite a taste for it and the competition when she was young.
Playing competitively with a bunch of people who probably wanted to pound
you into the muddy field though, kind of zapped all the fun out of it.
A lot of the kids passed her the ball just so the opposing team would run after her.
Instead of outrunning them like she knew she easily could with her sort of past
training, she "kindly" passed the ball and the spotlight to another one of her team mates.
"Hey romp, why so scared of the ball?"
"I'm kicking it aren't I?"
"Scared of getting a little dirty?"
Seiko bit down on her lip, pushing down the rising frustration. It was amazing
how fast she went from being an arrogant tomboy to a snobbish femme. Well,
whatever. Empty words. That's all they were.
It was then a shoulder caught her off guard by slamming into her from behind,
sending her off balance and into a ditch that had gathered water over night.
She slowly looked up to see one of the players with the ball look down at her
with a raised eyebrow. "Oops"
Yeah. Right.
Without looking for so much as a hand to help her up, she stood up onto her
own two feet with a sigh and headed towards the change rooms.
The hallways were still empty as she walked in through the doors. The only
other sounds besides her shoes that squeaked with each step against the
floor were the rustles of paper and soft voices from ongoing lessons behind
closed doors.
Maybe she could still yet salvage the days ahead by apologizing to Rikoro for
her adrupt comment. A knowing voice in her head told her that would be a lot
easier said than done. First she'd have to find the courage to even walk up to
him and even then she probably wouldn't be able to get close, probably not
even with a note.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment wishing she was anywhere but here,
sitting on her bed at home reading blank cards that told her nothing and staring
into space out her window when she had enough of that. She'd rather be in that
neverending circle or slump she had grown so accustomed to than having to deal
with angry peers and these sudden mud baths. Her hand gripped the door of the
changeroom while her head painfully slumped against the wall. She stood there
for a few moments, absorbing everything but this sudden feeling of hoplessness
that threatened to overwhelm her.
"Hey, I don't have it! What more do you want from m--ooof!"
"This is the last time I'm gonna ask you..."
Angry voices made their way from the end of the hallway, getting louder and
eagerly prodding through the young girl's thoughts. Soles squeaking against
the smooth floor surface, pleading, the sound of something or someone being
shoved up against the wall, small grunts of pain barely escaping from bewteen
someone's lips. Strangely enough not one classroom door opened to investigate.
Seiko turned her head to see a boy no more than ten years being held roughly
by the shoulders being shaken and pushed by a kid she recognized as Hizashi.
His bright red hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and his thin frame lined
with wiry athletic muscle rippled beneath his skin as he lifted his victim up off the
floor to whisper intimately into his ear. The fact that he was at least five years
older than his victim struck a chord in her. As if by reflex she moved away from
the changeroom door and stood a short ways from the two boys who hadn't yet
noticed her presence at all.
"Excuse me"
The boys continued to ignore her, as if her voice was only a sliver of breeze
teasing their senses.
"Excuse me", her voice rose a notch in volume and in steel. "Drop him."
Hizashi furrowed his brows and turned his head to face the girl whose dark blue
eyes glared steadily at him. "What?"
"I said _drop_ him."
A smile crept up along his face as, looked her up and down incrediously.
"Is that a threat?"
"Just let him go. He's twice your size. And age. He obviously doesn't wanna
fight, so stop being all high mighty and just leave him be."
He shruged. "Fine." He lowered the boy to the ground and shoved him away.
Without so much as a nod of his head in thanks, the flustered kid scrambled
away out of sight. Seiko opened her mouth to acknowledge Hizashi's choice
with praise when the older boy rushed to her in a blur of red. Too stunned and
preoccupied to dodge out of the way in time, she grunted in mild surprise as two
large calussed hands grabbed hold of the folds of her shirt and pushed her back
with overpowering momentum until her back was shoved roughly into something
hard and protruding from the wall. Most likely the doorframe to the girl's changeroom.
Colours swam between Seiko's vision as she rapidly blinked to clear her sight and
concentrate on controlling her breathing which shook unsteadily so that she could
talk and fight back. A warm, unwelcome feeling of someone elses breath on her neck
and ear made her stomach turn in disgust and revulsion.
"You look about my size and age..", a voice whispered malicously into her ear before
slamming her against the piece of painted metal again so that she wouldn't be able
to respond properly.
She closed her eyes tightly and forced the dizziness away as voices that had been
implanted into her as a child screamed at her to fight back. As if testing his strength
the boy strained to lift her up high against the doorframe until her shirt in his grip
threatened to rip and tear away from her skin. "What? Aren't you going to fight back?".
She slipped a little lower to the ground as one of his hands realeased itself from her
shoulder and punched her exposed torso, letting go completely to let her collapse on
the floor and watch as she reflexively tried to curl up to protect her midsection.
"Maybe this will make you think twice about interferring in someone else's buisness."
The voices were now screaming at her."Fight, fight, fight!". If only she could lift her
arm. Her hands and fingers grasped the floor to help her body find a moment, even a
second of balance that would allow her to launch herself at him.
They shook too much, however, and before she could do much of anything he picked
her up once more and threw her across the hallway so that she toppled onto her back
unprotected.
Instead of turning away, Hizashi casually walked over to her, his tall frame towering
over her body as if waiting for her to react.
Her heartbeat quickened as adrenaline began to pump through her veins. The colours
that had been swimming in her vision all blended into a hazy violent shade of red and
her legs and arms stilled and tensed. He was saying something to her, she could tell
from the movement of his lips and expression of indifference plastered on his face,
but she couldn't hear anything now but the voices that rose louder and louder in volume.
"Fight, fight, FIGHT!!!"
An inhuman growl penetrated the air, shocking the boy into silence and surpising even
herself. She didn't stop to think as her body all of a sudden found a will of it's own.
"Fight, fight, FIGHT!!!!"
It wasn't just the need to defend, she realized, but the need to react to everything she
had had to deal with in the last two years that forced her off the ground and sent her
flying into him, kneeing him in the groin and punching him hard into the gut sending
him stumbling back in shock. She hit him again and again until he finally fell to his
knees, head bowed down to the floor, breathing hard.
Seiko stopped. The voices settled down, fading away now that she had done
as they had asked. Then adrenaline, though still there, slowly thinned out as
she saw the boy's condition. Blood trickled down his chin and onto floor in
small droplets. A hand clutched his chest and every breath he took made an
unhealthy wheezing sound his his throat. Enough was enough, she thought,
and offered a hand to the fallen boy.
He looked away from the floor to gaze at the open hand offered to him and slowly
took it. A firm grip in hers. Which instead of relying on her to pull him up, used
the rest of his strength to pull her down to him. Using his body weight he pushed
her back onto the floor, sitting on her stomach so her constant struggling was futile
and a waste of energy. One hand gripped her chin to face him, while the other held
her by the hair, which by now had fallen out of their pins to tumble onto the floor in
black, tangled waves. He leaned furthur down as if to kiss her, but instead whispered
something that only she would be able to hear.
"I bet your momma left you because you were a real bitch."
Her breathing stopped. Her blood ran cold. Emotions never fully tasted rose up
in her stomach like bile until she thought she would burst. And just as she
thought she might discover what it was like to draw blood. Real, violent
amounts of it, that is, a fist dropped down on her, seemingly from the heavens
above.
And at last she was forced to surrender to darkness.
* * * *
"Seiko..."
Tori had been standing just before the entrance of her bedroom door for
sometime now. Half an hour maybe, Seiko figured, still and contemplating,
silent so as not to make the young girl aware of her presence, though Seiko's
senses had picked up the first step she had made on the bottom stair of the
house.
Instead of turning around to acknowledge her guardian, she had preferred
sitting hunched over on her bed, staring out the window with curtains wide
open for once, while trying hard not to finger the growing purple welt under
her right eye. The older woman was doubtlessly figuring out how to approach
her about what had happened yesterday, though she couldn't figure out why.
Seiko had woken up on a hard, thinly cushioned table in a room that was
supposed to be the nurses office. A woman poking her in the eye, causing
pain that had reminded her why she had gotten there in the first place had
told her softly she had put ointment over the bruises so she wouldn't have
to worry about carrying around an ugly mass of colours, which supposedly
stuck out terribly on her white skin.
She had told her to go back to class then, which Seiko had gladly walked by
without another thought and walked straight out the front doors for the last time.
When she had arrived home it had been all she could do to get up to her room
without Tori fussing over her and apologizing again and again.
"Sorry? But for what?", had been her mumbled reply before she got away.
"Seiko...", Tori tried again, clearing her throat.
The younger girl finally turned her head to give her attention, even though
it had been there the whole time. She was angry. No, cut that, she was
furious, but not at the woman standing in her doorway, the woman who had
put up with her crap for so long now.
"The sun is spilling its last light and the air is sweet, would you join me for a walk?"
"I suppose", she replied, a little hesitant to stray away from her haven for the
second time that day.
She followed Tori out into evening, the autumn air assulting their senses.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?", Tori nodded her head towards the fading trees that heavily
lined the narrow urban streets of the village. "Even in death everything can be so
peaceful."
"I suppose."
"But soon the light will be back full force and everything will be reborn again.
A fresh start you would say."
"That's generally how the seasons work."
"Because, after all, life does go on."
"You're not here to talk about what happened today, are you? If you're trying
to tell me something, just go ahead and say it."
"Seiko..."
"Don't say my name like I might all of a sudden break, because I won't." At least,
she didn't think so, Seiko thought quietly to herself.
"A few days ago there was a messenger from Cercis."
"A messenger checks up on us every year."
"Yes, but this year is different. This year he came bearing an important message
from the queen."
Seiko turned to look at her, already having a sneaking suspicon what the message
would be about.
"The queen requests," Tori continued, "you return to the city to resume training
and to be with your family again."
"My family..."
"You need them." There was a tone in Tori's voice as she said that, a steely tone that
basically stated that her mind was already made up and nothing would be able to change
it. There would be no room for argument whatsoever.
Seiko turned and started to walk away. Dead leaves scattered and twirled around
her feet, and she wished for a moment that she could be among them too, her fate being
to float along as the wind carried her, only having to watch the souls above
and below her.
"Would you?", a faint inexistent voice in the wind asked her, before it's sympathy was
lost in the rising roar of it's brothers and sisters.
The soldier-to-be had no reply.
* * *
End of Part 2
Author's Notes: Yeah, uh... believe it or not, it _is_ going somewhere ^.^0 I've had this
thing planned out for ages now.
You can visit my currently inactive page (for the moment anyways) at: www.sparks.ca/sara
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