|| Flame
of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||
| En | Ning |
Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong
to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and
torture) purposes.
Last Revised: 18/07/2001
| Chapter
1 |
Mori Kouran stared across his
desk at his adopted son. "I've got a little task for your Uruha to carry
out. However, make sure they don't leave a mess behind like they did the last
time." 'And the time before that, and the time before *that* too. Hell,
they've *always* been messing up,' Mori Kouran thought darkly.
Kurei replied icily,
"They're trained to obey orders, not pick up after each other."
Mori Kouran sighed and said,
"Just make sure they do the job and do it well."
*Sometime later in the Uruha
mansion* A hybrid of Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare was going on in the
basement. Neon crossed her fingers and spun the bottle, hoping fervently that
it would not land at a certain horny and woody pervert or a certain ecchi old
man. But, as luck would have it, it was precisely at the aforesaid person, aka:
Mokuren that the bottle wound up pointing at. Neon cursed her luck as she asked
him indifferently, "So, truth or dare?"
When he replied, "Truth."
Neon started to feel slightly uneasy. After all, what "secrets" did
that lunatic have that she was simply dying to hear? Answer: NONE.
"Err...okay,
Mokuren..." Neon was at a loss as to what to say. She glanced desperately
around the room trying to think up of a 'safe' question, one that would not
entail any hentai answers. She did *not* like the way Mokuren was staring at
her.
The door opened just then to
reveal Kurei. The plastic bottle immediately disappeared as the Uruha pretended
to be busy doing other things. Their employer, Kurei, did not approve of such
gatherings, especially during the day.
"Err...Kurei-sama..."
Kurei glared at the Uruha
members seated in a rough circle on the floor. "Mori Kouran wants us to
investigate a supposedly haunted mansion."
The Uruha members, mostly from
the Jyuushinshuu with the exception of Kirin and said horny woody pervert just
looked at Kurei blankly.
"Why the hell does
Mori-sama want us to investigate a *house*?" Mikoto asked disdainfully.
"I have *much* better things to do!"
"Really? Like what?
Improving your personality maybe?" Joker asked innocently before catching
sight of a certain poisoned fingernail coming his way. Of course, he had a
little common sense to know when to shut up.
Neon asked curiously,
"Kurei-sama, why does he want us to investigate a haunted house for? I
mean, what use does Mori-sama have with ghosts and stuff like that?"
Kurei glanced at her briefly
before replying, "How am I supposed to know? If you're ordered to do
something, just do it and stop asking me questions!"
"WHAT!!! YOU MEAN WE REALLY
HAVE TO GO FIND GHOSTS?!?!?!" Aki and Miki screeched together. The Uruha
had found the perfect pair to represent their sentiments exactly. Kirin was
starting to get a headache from the large amount of thoughts, belonging to
other people, about haunted houses going through her head, thanks to her
Shingan.
Mikoto snorted, "There are
no such things as ghosts, baka!"
"No, no, don't say such
things! The ghosts will get you!" Aki shouted at Mikoto.
"Where exactly is this
house?" Genjurou, the only calm (relatively) person in the room asked. He
too was getting a headache from all the shouting and screaming. Of course, he
did not believe in ghosts either, but was too wise to announce the fact to Aki
and Miki who were obviously afraid. His eardrums had taken more than enough
damage, thank you very much.
Kurei handed him a small, dirty
and torn piece of paper. "Everyone in this room is going, so get a move
on!"
The moment their employer left
the room, the Uruha burst into protest at the injustice of sending a highly
skilled professional assassin group off to chase ghosts. It was of the general
opinion that time could be better spent at the Uruha mansion practicing...uh,
actually playing Tekken and DOA on the Playstation, or having illicit
gatherings. After all, illicit gatherings gave them a chance to practice their
stealth techniques and manipulating the controllers required a certain level of
finger dexterity.
Joker decided to make the best
of things. "Hey, Neon-han, does this mission mean you're going to dress up
as Lara Croft in the hot shorts and..." A well-aimed blow knocked out the
fanged assassin, albeit temporarily. Still, it was better than nothing.
Genjurou stared at the piece of
paper, trying to decipher what was scrawled on it. Of course, he did not want
to admit that his eyesight was failing, but the writing really was illegible.
He turned it over in hope that the address was written on the other side. Kirin
sensed his problem and decided to be a kind soul for once, i.e.: pretending to
be "oh-so-excited" about going on a ghost-hunt and snatching the
paper away from him.
"The haunted house is in
DISNEYLAND?!?!?!" She screeched in amazement. The assassins jawdropped at
this announcement and stared, or rather, glared, daggers at the poor girl.
"Er, Kirin, are you *sure*
you got the address right?" She heard Rasen ask mentally.
"Oops, gomen. the house is
*near* Disneyland, not *in* Disneyland." Kirin was sweatdropping profusely
under the pressure of the glares coming from the woody pervert and his *ahem*
girlfriend.
Rasen just *looked* at Kirin and
took the piece of paper. He turned it over and over carefully. The paper itself
was thin and grimy. To make it worse, the address was written in pencil and the
lettering had faded. Bringing the paper closer, he could barely decipher the
illegible handwriting. The house was *not* anywhere near Disneyland, contrary
to what Kirin had said.
"Er... Rasen says the
haunted house is about two hours outside Tokyo. In other words, it's in the
middle of nowhere," Kirin reported. She left out Rasen's comment on how
she ought to brush up on her reading skills. Rasen could be really mean
sometimes.
The rest of the Jyuushinshuu
sighed.
"I know!" Neon began
brightly, "let's have a picnic after the mission. I'll prepare the
food!"
The Uruha sighed and
sweatdropped as they watched Neon head off to the kitchen. Even Shiju would not
touch Neon's cooking... and he would eat anything.
"Great, now we not only
have a spasticated mission, but we also have Neon's cooking to deal with,"
Jisho said gloomily, effectively summing up everyone else's thoughts.
"......" was Noroi's
reply. But then, the thing did not really talk.
The remaining Uruha gave the
masked body a wide berth.
"Did Kurei-han say we had
to go *today*?" Joker asked as he regained consciousness. "Hey,
where's Neon-han?"
TBC…
Author's note: Yay! Part one of
our first serious (relatively) fic completed! Okay, this part is quite crap…
and it's not really very serious, is it? Sorry, if the story seems cliché or
anything, we were pretty low on inspiration when we wrote it. As to why Mori
Kouran would want a haunted house investigated… *shrugs* I have no idea. I
couldn't think of anything better. By the way, it is not going to turn into a
crap fic… hopefully. Hmm… in case you were wondering, En wrote the beginning
and I edited it and changed some parts because she had didn't want to start.
The hybrid of 'spin the bottle' and 'truth or dare' is her invention. Duh! It's
so… En. J
Lastly, arigato Kai for
proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.
Ning.