Chapter 1: Mysterious Discoveries
„Place her on the bed." Michiru advised her brother, who obeyed and gently laid the unconscious blonde woman into his sister's bed. Michiru sat down next to the blonde and unbuttoned her shirt, taking it off her. "Ichiro, please check her pulse. I need to know if she has a steady heartbeat." The aqua haired girl spoke while she continued to undress the unconscious woman. Upon pulling the white muscle shirt away, Michiru discovered two dog tags, attached to a thin silver chain, hanging around the blondes neck. "Weird…is she some kind of soldier?" Michiru wondered out loud before she picked the tags up and read what was engraved on them. "Tenoh Haruka, S-836-X" stood on the first one. "Weird." Michiru mumbled. She took the second one and examined it. "01/27/68 - …" "Even weirder." Ichiro commented. "Michiru, have a look at her wrists." Michiru did what she had been told, and her eyes widened. "What the…" she whispered, taking one of Harukas hands. On the inner side of her wrist, right above her veins, was some odd looking whitish thing right underneath the skin. "Does she have that on both hands?" Michiru asked, and Ichiro nodded. "Yes. What do you think it could be?" "I have no clue…but wait, maybe I can get a link." Ichiru sighed; he hated it when his sister did that. Michiru concentrated, then gently laid her index and middle finger directly on her guests wrist.
…pain, pain, the SPIDER, do it, DO IT, it won't hurt, pain, agony, NO, oh please stop…"Argh!" Michiru yelped in pain, jerking her hand back as if she had received an electrical shock. "Michiru!" Ichiro called out, shocked. "Are you okay?!" "Yes…yes, I'm fine. Don't worry…I'm fine." Michiru breathed, wiping a thin layer of sweat from her brow. "Do you now know what this is?" Ichiro asked, frowning when Michiru shook her head. "No…but…dear God, she had to go through so much pain…" the aqua haired girl then spoke, her voice shaking. Ichiro frowned again, but didn't say anything. Instead, he started tending to the blondes wounds, starting with getting the two bullets out. "Tenoh Haruka." Michiru mumbled while she looked at the dog tags again. "Do you think that this is her name?" Ichiro nodded, concentration on getting the bullets out. "They didn't get into her body very deep…I wonder how this is possible." The man mumbled to himself. Michiru peeked over his shoulder, but gulped and looked away again when Ichiro fished the first bullet out, a small river of blood running from the wound. Instead of watching the operation, Michiru tended to Harukas dislocated wrist, putting it back into jolt and bandaging it. Ichiro finished his small operation and dropped the second bullet on a small plate. "We have to stitch that." He mumbled, and Michiru just nodded, hurrying away to get the utensils her brother needed for stitching the wounds.
"You think she'll wake up soon?" Ichiro asked later that day. Michiru and he sat in front of their house on the stairs that led to the front door, drinking coke and eating potato chips. "I hope she will." Michiru replied. "So she can tell us what happened to her. And what the stuff on those dog tags means." Ichiro nodded, letting out a small sigh. "Well, we know that her name's Haruka Tenoh. Maybe that 01-27-68 thing is her date of birth…?" Michiru shrugged. "Could be. But what would the rest on that tag mean? And for what does S-836-X stand?" Ichiro mimicked his sister and shrugged, too. "I could try to get…" Michiru started, but Ichiro interrupted her. "No way. You will not try to get another link, understand? It's painful for you, at least when it comes to that woman." "I felt her pain." Michiru replied. "Only a small part of it, a little glimpse…but it was enough for me to show that she suffered before we found her." "And you don't know who made her suffer? …or what that weird white stuff in her skin is?" Ichiro asked. Michiru shook her head. "During the link…I caught a glimpse of a spider. But I have no clue what it could mean." "Hmph." Ichiro produced a weird sound, causing Michiru to smile at him. "Well…I guess we'll find out as soon as she wakes…" Before Michiru could finish her sentence, an ear-piercing scream shattered the peaceful silence of the night, scaring both Ichiro and Michiru out of their minds. "What the…?!" Ichiro cried out while Michiru already jumped to her feet. She knew where that scream had come from. "Ichiro, the scream came from inside the house! It has to be Haruka!" she cried out. Ichiro came to his feet, too, and the two of them ran inside, hoping and praying that they would find Haruka alive and well.