Resident Evil
Children of the Seraphs
By: Xenogears
Chapter one
In no way do I own the characters of Capcom's legacy, Resident Evil. They are used for non-profit purposes, only for entertainment. The characters Ryan Joseph Davidson, Anna Yamaguchi, and Mark belong exclusively to me and may not be used by anyone without my permission. The stories Resident Evil: Silver Blood, Resident Evil: The Seraphs and Resident Evil: Children of the Seraphs are also copyright of me, and may not be used in any way without my exclusive written permission.
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Claire Redfield read the speeding ticket over, then crumpled it in her hand, her knuckles going white. She leered at Ryan, who was trying to hide his face. A $200 fine, plus another $500 for reckless driving. On top of that, he had to be down at 26th and California, the Cook County Courthouse, for a hearing one week from the current date. It seemed like the millionth time that something like this had happened, and today was her day off from the hospital where she was getting on-the-job training. She wasn't going to put up with it any longer.
"Ryan Davidson!" she nearly screamed. "How can you explain this?!"
"Uh...driving while being a white teenager?"
That was it for Claire. Giving him a look of rage, she screamed, "NO! Just plain reckless driving on your behalf! Not only that, but you had a passenger with you! Do you understand the seriousness of this?!"
"Yes ma'm..." Ryan grumbled.
"What was that?!"
"Ma'm! Yes ma'm!" Ryan addressed her like a drill sergeant.
Claire could feel a vein bulging in her forehead. He was mocking her.
"That's it! Give me your keys! And the license!"
Ryan dug through his pockets for a moment, then came out with a set of keys and his wallet. He took out his license, tossed it and the keys to her, and Claire caught them. But then she threw them back at him.
"Hand them to me," she said sternly.
Ryan did as he was told, and mumbled something in Japanese.
"Better. I hereby suspend your driving privileges until further notice."
Claire and Leon had attained the title of guardianship over the three juveniles in the house over the course of the past year and a half. Sherry and Ryan had been the easiest to obtain; Ryan's parents had agreed to a temporary guardianship without too much hassle, and Sherry had no relatives that were available to take care of her. Anna had been a little different. It had taken them a whole month of negotiations with her parents to get them to agree, much to Ryan's relief.
Ryan stormed upstairs, intent on getting to his room. He would be back downstairs for homework in about half an hour, Claire supposed.
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Chris Redfield sat at a desk in his precinct, filling out a crime report. He was never good at these kinds of things; he had let Jill and Barry do most of the paperwork when he was still a member of S.T.A.R.S--he had gotten away with being able to write a paragraph or two, sign his name, and nothing more.
Now he had no choice but to fill out the whole report on his own. Leon had gotten the last one, and now it was Chris's turn. He had suddenly wished that he had taken the last report, so Leon could do this one. It was very tiring.
Apparently, the suspect had been found near the site of a robbery. He had run when told by police to stop, and when he was caught with the money and was asked where he got it, he claimed that he had found it in the garbage. Leon and Chris had gotten a laugh out of that. It turned out he was a suspect in various unsolved crimes, most of them under Chris's watch. So Chris had had to go look for all the evidence and reports. As it turned out, a few had been missing, so Chris had to rewrite them, one by memory. He looked over to Leon, who was giving him a smug look. Chris flipped him off, and returned to his work.
This was definitely not his day.
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As Leon scanned the noisy, slightly crowded main floor of the precinct, his gaze fell on Chris, filling out his paperwork. Leon was glad that he had taken the last report, because this one looked like hell. Or maybe it was only because most of the data on the case was under Chris's jurisdiction, thus leading to a poorly organized case (in terms of paperwork), and several files getting lost.
He shot a smug look at Chris, who returned his gesture with a middle finger. Leon laughed.
He looked down at his gold engagement ring. He had proposed two months ago to Claire, on the night of the three-year anniversary of their first meeting -- which Claire insisted was the night that they had both ventured into Raccoon City. She had instantly accepted. The announcement to the others didn't surprise them, but they were all happy, and even Chris seemed to be cheerful. They had set the date for the wedding for eight months from now, aiming for September 24. Leon still could hardly believe that he wasn't going to be a bachelor anymore, and he would have to get used to it soon, he told himself.
Leon smiled to himself at his good fortune, and prepared to clock out, leaving Chris to his misfortune of loads of paperwork.
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As Ryan walked into the backyard to take out the trash, he spotted Anna sitting on the back lawn wearing a loose-fitting body suit and practicing Yoga; she was faced toward the setting sun, her back to him. She was twisted up in a position that looked severely painful, but she still looked quite calm.
Ryan stood there, gawking at her. He had found that he was doing this more and more often lately, and he found that he couldn't stop himself. He had to admit: she was incredibly attractive to him. But she was still just a close friend. He would like to change that, but he knew it would be hard to bring himself to it.
"What's up, garbage boy?" Anna said jokingly.
Ryan was startled. At first she hadn't noticed him. Or was she just pretending that she didn't?
"Uh...As my name implies, I'm just taking out the garbage..."
"Okay."
Ryan couldn't help gazing at her for a few more moments before he went to the garbage container. The way that she was so flexible was just so mesmerizing to him. She could easily twist herself into a pretzel, and stay like that for prolonged periods of time, while Ryan could barely touch his toes. When he came back, Anna was in a new position, even more painful looking than before.
"Ouch...for the love of God, I don't know how you manage to do that without disfiguring yourself for life," Ryan said.
"It just takes practice. You should try it sometime. I'll give you lessons."
Ryan grinned and gave a small chuckle.
"Uh...iye ke godesu. I'd rather just stick with martial arts like Kendo, thank you very much."
"Whatever you say..."
Ryan was about to enter the house when an idea came to him. Making sure no one else was around, he formed a ball of electricity in his hand, then mentally shaped it into an electric Katana crafted in ceremonial Tokugawa Shogunate style. A glowing purple light surrounded the weapon, and when he swung it, it made a hissing sound mixed with a crackle of electricity.
This caught Anna's attention, and she gave a whistle of approval.
"Very nice," she complimented. "Since when did you learn how to do that?"
"Last week. I've been trying it for the past few months, and I just recently got down the perfection in the blade. I got the model from one of my books."
"Nice, but watch this."
Anna then got up out of her position, formed an ice crystal in her hand, and then mentally shaped it into a classic Yari spear of the Japanese Warring States Period. The only thing that made it look abnormal was the cool blue vapor rising from its blade.
This time it was Ryan's turn to give an impressed whistle. He swung his sword, and with a spark, it vanished into thin air. Smiling, he clapped his hands in approval.
"And how long have you known that?" Ryan asked.
"Ever since a little while after Carlton."
"You never showed me."
"The need didn't arise," Anna said. "You know...I was told that a Seraph could materialize only one weapon, and that would be the one that you would use for the rest of your life."
"Well let's see, I have a Katana, you have a Yari, and Mark..."
Ryan stopped in mid-sentence as he saw Anna's disconsolate reaction.
'Baka, baka, baka! You should know better than to talk about Mark in front of her!' Ryan thought in the back of his mind.
"Sorry..." he said.
"Ryan, I know that it happened over a year ago, but...it's still a delicate nerve for me."
"Like I said, Anna, sorry..."
Ryan then remembered what happened after the events of Carlton. Anna had locked herself in her room for over a month, only coming out for food and school. Only when he walked into her room one night and sat down and had a long, emotional talk with her did she start to return to normal.
Every person handles grief in different ways, Chris had told him. This happens to be hers.
'I wonder if she would have cried for me if I died instead of Mark,' Ryan thought. 'Or even if I were to die soon, would she shed tears for me?'
Anna made her spear melt into water and then fall to the ground, evaporating, and returned to her Yoga. Ryan wished her a good day, and went back inside.
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Ryan and Anna sat over their 'Japanese as a Second Language' homework, while they both were eating a rice cake and a small bag of chocolate frosting covered Pocky, and Ryan was drinking green tea made from Chinese spring tea leaves, delicious when made right--which it was.
Anna had given him the suggestion that it would be better to immerse himself in the culture as much as he could to help better his understanding of the language. So far, he was slowly adjusting to the Japanese diet; he had mastered the use of chopsticks, and was just used to tuna sashimi, but couldn't stand anything else that was fish, unless it was sushi.
He stared over the papers he was working with for a few more moments, then looked over at Anna. She seemed to be having no trouble with her work. She was busy scribbling at her paper while looking over her textbook, and drinking 2% milk from a black coffee mug that read, "BEWARE: I'm armed and have premenstrual tension." Something that Ryan considered funny, because judging from her behavior and his calendar, she had just gone though her 'monthly friend' six days ago. Much to Ryan's relief, because she could prove temperamental at those times. Ryan called it an "Extreme MS disorder." He remembered one day where she came in the house from school screaming about the smallest things. No one, not even Claire, dared to bother her.
Ryan looked at his work so far. Three filled lines compared to Anna's almost three full paragraphs. Ryan had mastered Hiragana, including the Daku-on's, Hondaku-on's, and Yoon-on's, and knew most of the Katakanas, but he barely knew thirty Kanji characters and was having a very difficult time with it. He only knew the meanings of fifteen of the characters. The other half he knew how to write but didn't know their meanings or how to say them. His eyes were getting quite tired of looking though the English-Kanji dictionary that was opened in front of him. Obviously, his strong point in Japanese was the spoken, not the written, part of the language.
With a heavy sigh of frustration, he slammed his pencil into the kitchen table, successfully snapping off the point. Anna looked up suddenly from her work.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, ready to pull out his hair. "I...I just don't get it! Why did the Japanese have to take such a complex written language like Chinese, and incorporate it into not only their language, but their everyday life?! It pisses me off!"
Anna only looked at him and spoke calmly, ignoring his outburst.
"Easy. They just needed a larger syllabry. They turned to the Chinese for that."
"Yeah, but couldn't they have simplified it, or at least not taken almost 2,000 characters?!"
"If my history serves me correctly, the Japanese actually took the whole language--that's more than 50,000 characters--into their own language. Until then, I think, they didn't have a written language. It wasn't until the early 1940s, I believe, that they cut it down to about give or take 7,500 and started using the Hiragana and Katakana, which were said to be derived from Chinese, more often."
Ryan banged his head on the table. "Ugh."
"Hey. It's not that bad. You only need about 1,000 to get through everyday life."
"What do you mean, 'not that bad'?! You already know basically over half the Kanji charts, and you're at the advanced level in our class, while I'm stuck between the beginners and intermediates!"
"I've been studying Japanese and English since I was old enough to speak. Japanese is an orderly language with simple rules and few exceptions. English is just the opposite of that. In short, compared to English in many ways, Japanese is child's play."
"Sure, if you're raised in the culture!"
"Whatever."
Ryan sighed in defeat. When she said that, it was no use going any further with her.
He reached into his hooded sweatshirt pocket for a cigarette, and when he placed it to his lips, he found the tobacco part of it missing, and he looked over at Anna who held it in her hand.
"You've already had one today. That's the limit," she said.
Ryan simply ignored her, and reached for another. Anna snatched it from his lips, and threw it in the trash can along with the other part of the first cigarette. Anna had taken great pride in her efforts to cut down Ryan's habit. Over the course of one year, she had managed to help him cut down to five a week, one a day, none on weekends.
"Hey," he protested. "Claire said that she would get me some nicotine patches tomorrow. Can you just let me enjoy what will probably be my last cigarette?"
"No, Ryan," Anna said in a stern tone. "Learn to resist things like this."
Ryan again sighed in defeat, cursing at his own stupidity.
'Eh, nothing to be worried about,' he thought. 'I'll grab one outside later.'
"No, you won't," Anna said, not even looking up from her work. Ryan had let that thought escape the confines of his mind, so Anna picked up on it. "Do it and you'll be more than sorry."
Ryan sank deeper into his chair, and returned to his work. He scanned his mind for the 'ni', 'hon', and 'go' Kanji characters, and jotted them down, completing his third line.
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"Ha! You can't beat me!" Ryan said as he hammered down on his controller.
"What?! You ain't that good!" Anna shot back.
"I've beaten you three times already with Jehuty! There's no way that your Neith can destroy me!"
"Yeah?! Well I've beaten you three times already with Neith!"
"But you're about to lose again!"
Ryan and Anna were playing 'Zone of the Enders
"This is about honor! I will not lose!" Anna said.
Ryan released a burst slash on Anna, then blocked as she came in with a melee attack. Ryan blocked, retreated, shot off a few long-range energy shots, and blocked again as Anna came in with another melee attack. He countered with a grab-and-throw into a building, ending the bout.
"Yeah! Victory! Da da da da di dum di duh dum!" Ryan exclaimed.
Anna rolled her eyes and sighed in disgust as Ryan began to sing "We are the Titans."
They were both equally matched in action games, but her specialty was sports games, while Ryan's were RPG's. Ryan knew that if he were to challenge her again, she would beat him horribly. To avoid defeat, he pointed his index finger at the game system, and when it went to standby mode, he clicked the I/O switch.
Ryan was about to ask Anna a question that had been bothering him for days, when Claire walked into the living room. She went over to the bookshelf right next to them, looking for one of her many medical textbooks.
'Damn...' he thought. 'I might as well tell her through a mental link. Get some privacy that way...'
Her voice had gotten much clearer since Carlton; he figured it was due to his own greater experience in mental linking. And the fact that they were very good friends now.
'Anna?'
'Yeah?'
'Uhhh...I don't really know how to ask you this...'
'Just say it bluntly.'
Ryan gulped hard. Here it goes...
'Uh, okay...umm...uhh...Anna? Willyougooutwithme?'
Anna took a moment to fill in the spaces, and when she did, she looked at Ryan peculiarly, one of her eyebrows raised.
'Is this some sort of joke?'
Ryan could feel a cold sweat forming on his brow. Damn, this didn't look good. If she didn't accept, he would be quite embarrassed and lose a lot of face for a very long time. If she accepted...what if she did?
'No...'
Anna's look grew stranger.
'Why would you ask me such a question?'
'Why? Uhhhmmm...because you're good looking, smart, and strong willed...'
Please don't make me have to explain it even further...I don't want to say something good that will ruin all of this...
'You've gotten over what I did to you in Carlton?'
'Yes! Of course! I've gotten over that long ago.'
'This...this is unexpected, Ryan. I don't know what to say.'
'You said to say it bluntly.'
'True, I did.'
There was a long, heavy pause. After what seemed like ages, Ryan decided to ask her for her decision, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
'So...what's your answer?'
Please say yes, please say yes...
Anna looked at the floor. She blocked her thoughts for a long time. Ryan tried to break the barrier as quietly as he could, but that would be impossible without Anna noticing. Without warning, Anna suddenly came out of her thought barrier.
'Okay.'
Wunderbar! Ichiban! Jackpot! Yes!
'BUT, under two conditions.'
Damn...
'One, I pick the place.'
Damn again...
'Two, no kissing.'
Damn once again...
'Fine with me.'
'All right. How much do you have saved up?'
'Ummm...about 75 bucks.'
'Okay then. We'll go to...Minato's.'
'Minato's? Where is that located?'
'I believe it's on Dempster, somewhere in Morton Grove near that special education school, Molloy.'
That's close to Niles West...
'Not too far...wait. Minato's? Is that Japanese food?'
'Yeah. So what?'
Whadda ya mean, so what?! Ryan thought himself, then to her:
'"So what?" Places like that tend to be expensive, maybe!?'
'You have three quarters of a hundred dollars. You can afford it.'
Ryan started to regret he told her how much he had exactly how much he had. He should have told her, 'Not much.'
'All right then. Tomorrow at...eight?'
'Seven thirty.'
Eh. Not too bad.
'Done.'
Ryan went for the stairs that led to the second floor. For now, he was going to sleep. Tomorrow was Saturday, but he felt very tired.
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He reviewed his findings.
That young Ryan Davidson liked to go to various Barnes and Nobles's, but he mostly liked to go to the Skokie Public Library, either to study or to read. The times he went varied.
Anna Yamaguchi liked to visit a café in the neighboring suburb of Evanston called Café Express. She would sit there for hours at a time, reading a novel, and drinking a hot chocolate with a little cinnamon. The times she went were almost every weekend, and every Monday. She would sometimes stop in on Thursdays.
Which was easier? It would be hard to do anything to her unless she was disabled, or not at complete strength.
But, whatever needed to happen, he would do it. He had the funding, and the resources.
He would get his revenge. No matter how long it took.
Daku-on's are the Japanese characters that look like they have quotation marks in the upper right side of the character. Not to be confused with Katakana characters 'shi', 'tsu' and 'n' (applies to both Hiragana and Katakana).
Hondaku-on's are the characters that look like they have large periods above them. These are the easiest to remember since there are only five for Hiragana and five for Katakana. They make the 'pa', 'pi' (pee), 'pu', 'pe' (peh), and 'po' sounds (applies to both Hiragana and Katakana).
Yoon-on's are the characters that have one large and one small character combined to make a single, usually three-lettered sound, like a compound sound. Not to be confused with Hiragana 'ke,' 'ta,' 'na,' 'ni,' 'ha,' and 'ho' characters (applies to both Hiragana and Katakana).
Iye ke godesu (EE-eh-(very short, 0.5 second pause)-keh-go-dess)/No thank you.
Baka (Baa-kah)/Idiot (Note, that if you place a 'ne' at the end, it means 'stupid.')
Ichiban (EE-chi-baan)/Number one/Very good. (Note, that 'Ichi' by itself means 'one')
Pocky (Pok-ee)/A Japanese biscuit snack. It's basically a thin bread stick covered in (most commonly chocolate) frosting. Ichiban!
Draft: 6/19/01 (1:46AM)
Final: 9/17/01 (2:15PM)
Ja ne!
