Disclaimer: You know what belongs to me and what doesn't.
A/N: The next installment, believe it or not. I'm really unsure when I'll complete this… I want to complete it but I know myself… Ugh… this is such a terrible bad habit of mine; I'm always starting new projects before finishing old ones. I think I'm going to try and update this fanfic every second Saturday or something then I'll at least finish something up here in this fandom.
Chapter two:
Confessions from the Deceased
Dedicated to my best friend who helped me on this one.
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The little girl sat down and stared up at the white sky. There was no blue visible, only the white and gray shades of the clouds.
"Mama, can you please hold my teddy bear?" asked the little girl. The mother looked down at her daughter and smiled.
"Yes darling." She said and grabbed hold on the teddy bear and slowly began to walk away.
"Mama? Where are you going? Where are you taking my teddy?" she asked. The mother didn't turn around or look back but walked on into the never-ending field, out into the distance.
"Mama! Mama! Mama! Give my back my teddy, mama, give me back Yuriko!" screamed the little girl and she ran towards her mother, and with every time her foot hit the ground she grew taller and taller and older and older, until she looked 16. Then she stopped and fell down on the ground with exhaustion.
"Give me back Yuriko…" she whispered as she fell to the ground, unconscious.
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The morning rays streamed across the bedroom and shone on Fuuko's uncovered head. Her blanket lay on the floor and the pillow at her feet. She opened her eyes and groaned. She was in her room, thank heavens… she got up and looked out the window. Empty street. 'Why do I feel as if I'm going to regret going to school today.' She thought as she got out of bed, and checking her alarm clock. It was two minutes past the time it was supposed to ring.
"Now I know why I oversleep! The alarm never goes off." She said out aloud and put the clock back on the table. She walked out of the room and then entered the bathroom to come out again a few minutes later dressed up in her school uniform. She walked downstairs and to her surprise did not find her mother sitting there waiting for her as she usually did. Her father wasn't there either. There was a note on the fridge. It read: -
Fuuko,
We've gone on the 4:00 plane to Berlin. Bad news, we'll explain when we get home day after tomorrow.
-Luv, Mama
P.S. There's frozen food in the fridge and you know where the emergency money is.
She took off the note, crumpled it then reached inside the cupboard for some of the money. Not the emergency money though. Taking over a couple of bills she locked all the doors, grabbed her book and headed out to the coffee shop for breakfast.
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Nikki sighed as she stared image of herself in the mirror. The uniform was weird and slightly too skimpy. She could've sworn she'd never seen anything like it. "Hey! Wait a minute. Didn't Sailor moon where something like this? " She thought as she combed her hair and grabbed her books. Stuffing everything into an old bag of hers she walked into the kitchen.
"What? No pancakes?" asked Nikki. Her mother smiled and shook her head.
"Nope, cereal for today. Tomorrow I'll go buy some mix." She said. Nikki frowned and quickly finished off her cereal. The doorbell rang just as she had taken the last bite. She ran to the door and frowned. It was Ishijima…
"Uh hello Ishijima. You don't mind it if I call you from your first name do you?" she asked. Domon shook his head.
"Uh not at all, but you just used my second name. My first name is Domon." He said. Nikki raised an eyebrow, then it hit her. The Japanese always used their second names before first.
"Oh. Oh, okay. Come in." she said. Domon stepped in just as the bell rung again. They looked outside but nobody was there.
"That's strange," said Domon as he looked at the bell and touched it. He immediately began to shiver then pulled his hand away from it. "Let's go to school now." He said smiling at Nikki. Nikki raised an eyebrow in observation of his cowardice to touch the doorbell.
"Okay." She said then shouted through the door. "Okay Ma, I'm going now. Bye." She called out. No reply.
'That's strange…' thought Nikki as she walked out with Domon.
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There had never been a day that Mikagami had overslept and today was no exception. Before it was exactly 30 minutes to the first bell to ring he was ready and standing in front of the school. Yet he didn't want to go in…
People walked passed him, some stopped and stared at him for a bit then went on, some blushed and hurried on; yet not one stopped and asked him what was the matter.
That was how he wanted it. He wasn't there to talk to them. He wanted to talk to one particular person.
"She's going to be late today, she always chooses the wrong day to be late…" he thought then his eyes caught sight of a scene he knew he'd never see again in his life. Domon, walking into school early. To top that off, with a pretty, new girl who actually seemed to be talking to him intellectually and him responding with full sincerity on his face.
"Well what do you know, the gorilla is somewhat human after-all." He said smiling slightly. It was then that he caught sight of Fuuko. She ran through the gates, holding her book bag carefully almost past him. Almost.
She skidded to a stop in front of him then turned to face him.
"Were you waiting for me?" she asked, her face as cool as his normally was. She asked with such innocence that for a minute Mikagami actually thought she was being sincere. Then a grin broke out on her face and she began laughing. Mikagami sighed then looked away. Fuuko stopped laughing and turned to go into the building when Mikagami grabbed her hand. Fuuko turned around surprised and for a moment nobody said anything. It was too early in the morning to argue and too early fight away his hand. The wind blew and a few Sakura petals flew past them in slow whirling patterns.
"Do I get an explanation for last night?" he asked. Fuuko's expression changed from a questioning glance to a serious one with a slight smile involved.
"No, last night was just a dream." She said. Then Mikagami took out the picture the one of the graveyard with Fuuko's name on it and showed it to her.
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Fuuko stared at her mother and father sitting near the fireplace, crying over Yuriko's picture. All she could do was sit and watch. She'd cried too much already. That was enough.
"Mama, I'll be back soon." She said. Her mother didn't reply. "Daddy, I'm going to Yuriko's grave." Her father didn't reply either. "Mama, Daddy, do you love me?" she asked innocently. They never replied. Tears welled up in her eyes as she ran out. Past her lawn, through the streets, to the graveyard. In her hands were a chisel and hammer. She'd been wondering for days how to do this… and whether she should do it or not.
Now she was here, and she was staring at the empty tombstone. Her parent's hadn't carved out Yuriko's name…because they didn't want to loose her, not yet, not until they could face up to it. They still believed she would come back; but Fuuko knew there was only one way. She sprawled down on her knees and began to carve not Yuriko's name but her own.
"I'm taking your place Yuriko… I'll go to heaven. You can come back to mama, and daddy. They'll be happy now. They'll have Yuriko back again." She whispered then closed her eyes.
She woke up in her mother's arm. In her living room again. Her mother stared down at her.
"Why did you do it honey? Why?" She asked. Fuuko began to cry.
"I wanted her to come back again. I thought if I took her place she could-"
"No honey… you're Fuuko and we both love you very much. We don't want to loose you too. Yuriko's gone, but we still have you." She cried. Her father took her from her mother's arms.
"Don't leave us Fuuko, please don't try to anything stupid like that ever again." He said and he began to cry too. Fuuko's eyes welled up with tears.
"I won't… I promise." She said wiping away his tears.
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"Two weeks later we moved out, to the house further away. The psychiatrist told us it was time to start a fresh but we couldn't take Yuriko out of our lives completely. It wouldn't be fair on her." Said Fuuko as she and Mikagami now stood in front of Yuriko's grave. Ironically, it was buried only a block away from Mikagami's sister's grave at the Japanese temple.
"I never mentioned her… not during the UBS, not during the fight between me and Recca. It's always been my secret. Funny it had to be you to find it out." She said smiling slightly. Mikagami closed his eyes for a minute then opened them.
"How could you do that Fuuko? How could you just forget? Was she not your sister?" he asked. Fuuko raised an eyebrow.
"It was easy on you Mikagami. You could blame somebody for your sister's death and yet you are the most held-back, anti-social person I've ever know. I had nobody to blame except for myself, imagine what I would be like if I had let her death become a part of my life." She said. Mikagami was silent for a minute then he nodded. He understood. The wind blew again and the same pattern of Sakura petals flew past them. It seemed as if they held some magic for at that moment the tense feeling of the situation evaporated and Fuuko became all jumpy again.
"So, as we missed half of school already why not skip the rest and go to the park?" she asked. Mikagami looked at her with all his coldness coming back to him.
"In your dreams Sea-monkey." He said and began to walk towards school.
"Ooh! So the great Mi-chan is going to be late to school today. Ready to face detention?" she teased following him. Mikagami looked at her coldly, yet a slight smiled tugged at his lips.
"It's your fault." He said. Fuuko looked offended.
"Well excuse me Mr-I-got-to-know-everyhting-and-I-got-to-find-out-about-it-the-right-way-dramatically… " She said mockingly. Mikagami raised his hand to his left and hit her on the face gently but with force, without even turning around.
"Ouch." Fuuko rubbed her nose and laughed and opened her mouth to tease him a bit more but thought better of and shut her mouth again. She opened her mouth again to say something but again she stopped.
"Will you stop doing that? You look like a fish." He said as they walked up to the gates. He stopped and Fuuko raised an eyebrow.
"…"
"Well?" she asked.
"Let's go the park instead." He replied and Fuuko laughed a bit more and then dragged him to the park.
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Nikki looked outside and grimaced. This school was so absolutely boring. For starters, everybody was either asleep or on full alert. The teachers were either boring or jumpy. The classrooms were either too bright or too dull. Everything in this school was either too maximum or minimum. It made her want to scream. She almost did, till she saw the two kids outside.
The girl reminded her a familiar face she once saw but couldn't remember. The boy looked like one of those Japanese teen idols her mother had to do a report on once when she had a part time job working at a journalist for TIME.
She watched as the girl dragged the boy away from sight and vanished behind a building. She smiled just as a piece of chalk hit her on the head.
"Pay attention!" screamed the teacher just as the bell rang. Nikki rushed out of class, infuriated. Behind her Domon called out to her.
"Nikki wait a minute!" he called out to her. Nikki spun around, her forehead creased with frustration. Domon stopped and gapped.
"You look like Fuuko when you do that." He said. Nikki raised an eyebrow. This was the 6th time he mentioned this Fuuko, and never once had she met her.
"Who is Fuuko anyway?" she asked.
"The love of my life… but she's absent today otherwise I'd have introduced you to her." He told her looking all high and mighty for some reason. Nikki raised an eyebrow.
"Oh I see. So you mean to tell me that you've got a girl friend who looks like me when she's angry; and she's absent today; and she adores you… and what's so special about her to make you look so high and mighty in front of me?" she asked crossing her arms and smilingly questionably.
"Fuuko adores Domon? Girl friend? Yah right!" said a voice behind her. She spun around and looked at a boy with black spiky hair and a type of long bracelet down his arm.
"You must be the new girl… I'm Yanagi and this is Recca. We're friends of Domon. And Fuuko." Said the girl standing next to Recca. Nikki shook their hands.
"Pleased to meet you." She said.
"Don't get to worked about what the old scrooge in there said to you. He's like that, always picking on the student…" said Recca. Nikki looked at the two and smiled as if not knowing what to do now.
"Um, Recca and I have lunch now. Would you like to join us? Two of our friends seem to be absent and it'll be nice to liven things up a bit." Yanagi suggested. Nikki smiled but in a different way.
"Sure, why not?"
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Two girls sat staring down at the roses outside their house.
"They're growing… do you think they'll reach the window outside mama's room before they die?" asked one of them. The other was quiet, just shook her head.
"No? But why?" whined the first one.
"Because they're not powerful enough." Said a voice behind the two. They spun around to see a young lady in white. "They need to be powerful before they grow." She said. The girl who spoke hugged the woman.
"Will I be just as powerful some day?" she asked. The woman hugged the girl back.
"If you try hard enough, and have the will too. Then you'll grow tall, taller than these roses, and prettier. The powerful are always beautiful." The quiet one turned around.
"The powerful may be pretty, but only because the hide behind the mask of beauty. Once taken away they become ugly again, just like these roses. Take away the thorns, and their stems become weak, allowing us to pluck their beauty from the ground. Take away power, and others will take away the beauty… life's like that." She said silently. The woman laughed.
"Fuuko? Where did you come up with that? You're only 5." She said. Fuuko turned around and grimaced.
"The wind told me that." She said and walked off.
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Fuuko took one look around the playground and with out hesitating she threw her bag to one side and jumped onto a swing. Mikagami just stood there and leaned against the monkey bars.
"You… have…no…sense…of…adven…ture…" said Fuuko every time the swing would come near him.
"You have no sense of maturity." He replied. Fuuko jumped off, gracefully like a cat and narrowed her eyes at him.
"Are you calling me immature?" she asked crossing her arms. Mikagami nodded his face undisturbed. Fuuko raised an eyebrow and put her hands on both his shoulders and drew herself nearer to him. Her face only inches away from his.
"Would you call this immature?" she asked. Fuuko, what the heck's wrong with you… you're flirting…with Mikagami… and you're good at it.
Mikagami's eyes flickered with surprise then went back to their original state.
"Yes, it's immature." He said as Fuuko drew her face up closer. She's flirting… with you… and you're enjoying it.
"Well then, I guess I'll have to try some thing else Mi-chan, to show you… that… I'm… not… as… immature… as…you …think…" she said drawing her face closer with every word. Mikagami was speechless. When her lips were only centimeters from his she drew back.
"Gotcha!" she shouted and laughed. Mikagami sighed so silently that she almost didn't hear. Almost.
"Are you sighing? Don't tell me! Mikagami was scared back then?" she teased and laughed, just as a breeze of Sakura petals flew past them in the air and the trees behind them began to sway. Fuuko turned around to go get her backpack and just as she was about to Mikagami grabbed hold of her arm and spun her around into his arms. Fuuko's eyes widened as he leaned down and kissed her softly. When he let go he smirked slightly.
"Gotcha." He said and let her go. They stood there for a long time staring at each other in disbelief. In the distance the school bell rang and the magic disappeared.
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Yanagi walked Nikki home after school. Recca and Domon went to check up on Fuuko. Yanagi talked, Nikki listened. Her eyes were on the road but her mind was on what Yanagi was saying. Yanagi seemed so absolutely cool. She had her own ninja, she was a nursery helper, and she had a cute face with a cute air around her. Everything about her seemed so perfectly wonderful. Nikki hadn't had anything so wonderful happen to her.
Often she'd imagine some handsome, perfect Prince Charming to appear out of just nowhere and take her away from her shabby life. Her father would somehow miraculously come back to them and take her mother away from her shabby life also. Then all of them would live happily ever after in two palaces facing each other so that they could see each other every day and then talk off the terrible times as a long and distant dream. However reality brought her back to earth, and this little fantasy of hers became the long and distant dream.
"…Yet Recca is so… I don't know… he's the best. He's saved me so many times, and if I told you how you'd never believe me." Yanagi said laughing at the end.
"Try me." Answered Nikki looking sincere. Yanagi stopped.
"He saved me when I was kidnapped." She told her wondering whether Nikki would think she's making it up or not. Nikki's eyes, literally, went round in fascination.
"Oh my god!" she squealed. "That is so absolutely cool! I wish I had a ninja to serve me." She said breathlessly. Yanagi blushed.
"Well… I'm sure you'll find yours some day." She said. Nikki's hand went up to her heart.
"I wish I would." She said.
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"Yuriko… come back to me…Yuriko, I love you… come back to me… Yuriko, don't die… come back to me." Cried the girl as she sat in front of the grave. Lit candles surrounded her. In her hands she held two essence sticks and in her lap a book.
"Yuriko…" she cried. "I need you… I don't need anybody except you. You're my only friend." Tears rolled down her face in huge quantities.
"Everybody is so mean, nobody likes me… only Recca is nice to me. But I don't want him as a friend. I want you. I want you." She placed the essence sticks on the grave and wiped away her tears.
"Little lady… what are you doing here?" Fuuko turned around to see an old man with a lantern staring at her.
"I'm bringing back my sister. She's going to take over my body so we can be two in one." She replied. The old man's eyes widened.
"Oh no no no! You can not do that. Bring back the dead? You can not offer your body to the deceased, what if they've moved on and only their evil is left behind…what is you became evil?" he asked. Fuuko's face went white at the thought.
"I hadn't though about that." She cried. The old man smiled.
"Come, I'll take you home." He said extending an arm to Fuuko. Fuuko sniffled then accepted, and he walked her home, and behind them the essence sticks still burned on.
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Somewhere far in the heart of Berlin there was a train crash. A train collided with a car sending the car flying into the air and into a lake. The couple inside it died. Only their passports were found 4 hours later, floating at the surface. The family names read: Kirisawa… and as the police contacted their connections in Germany, a feeling of pity grew over them, sympathy for the couple… for they had left an orphaned daughter in this world, unprotected and alone.
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To be continued…
A/N: Well? I don't know about you people but I sure enjoyed writing this chapter ^_^ *grins and points at the paragraph involving Fuuko and Mikagami* I noticed the plot holes, but frankly speaking… to me they don't matter, just pretend such stuff is believable and it happens. I tried to write a Psychological Thriller but obviously I'm a failure at it. Oh well, what the heck? At least I tried to... I hope you people liked this… and the third chapter… what third chapter? Oh yeah, after I upload chapter 3 of Different Worlds I'll put it up. I may upload them simultaneously. And I guess Dark Phoenix realized what I was going to do with my plot and the connection between Yuriko and Nuriko's name! I changed that though, I thought it was too obvious so I wanted to surprise everybody… was anybody surprised at all? Or is that my wishful thinking? By the way, I wrote these two chapters before I uploaded the first. I was planning to finish of the first seven or so when I thought 'Hey! I'm only writing around seven chapters!' so… chapter three is being written at the moment… I might complete it tomorrow though cause I've already written 6 pages (And I write 10 pages per chapter… the first chap was 16 pages though ^^).
NOTE: Chapter three might suck more than these two chapters. Exams and all you know.