A Monster
Within Me
by Joshua
Falken
Inspired by "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson and "The Incredible Hulk" by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Thanks to David for beta-read this fic :-)
Disclaimer: Love Hina and its characters are property of Ken Akamatsu. No copyright infligement is intended. This is a fanfiction work, written for fun.
Author's note: the song that Shinobu sings is "Somebody Else" by Bleu (from "Spider-Man Soundtrack"). No copyright inflingment is intended.
Chapter 2 - Exposition
The next day, a formally-dressed black-haired girl looked through the window of Shinkensen, heading for Osaka. She sang to herself in a low tone:
Maybe I was too much
Maybe I'll take it down a notch
Maybe I'll have the guts to go mad
Maybe I'll mess me up real bad
Maybe I'll make you wish you had the old me back
Why can't I be somebody else?
Somebody who isn't too cool to believe it's okay to be just me...
She tried to understand what was happening. Since she was 10 years old and was left with her uncles in Tokyo, her parents had never entered into contact with her... Never. And now, out of the blue, they demanded that she went to Osaka to talk with them...
"Will it be that they reconciled?" She thought, not knowing if she felt hope or fear of that possibility.
"Attention, Osaka Terminal Station!" A voice announced and Shinobu got ready to disembark. She walked through the terminal until she saw two very big men, in business suits and dark glasses standing in the terminal. One of them had black hair and the other had blond hair and seemed foreign. The blond man held a poster saying: "Shinobu Maehara, Hinata City." Timidly, she approached of them, that they looked at her from head to toe, without sketching any reaction. The one that held the poster asked:
"Miss Maehara?"
"Yes."
"Could you show some I.D.?"
Somewhat surprised, she showed her school card.
"Thank you, Miss Maehara. I'm John Gresham and this is Makoto Matsudaira. We are from the security department of Kymera-Biotech." It was the company for which Shinobu's parents worked. "Unhappily, Doctor Gendo and Kanoe Maehara could not come to meet you, so they asked us to come here and pick you up."
"I un-understand." She was surprised at her own disappointment.
They went in the direction of a white limousine, that had stopped in front of the station. The black-haired bodyguard opened the door of the vehicle and he waited as a very embarrassed Shinobu entered. The bodyguard closed the door and murmured in a hidden microphone:
"MS-17 on the way."
The limousine with the silver logotype of the biotechnology corporation left the train station.
======
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, a woman with a pleasant face served a couple of seniors in her restaurant.
"The food was simply delicious!" The man commented, smiling.
"I'm glad that our food pleased you." Akane Maehara, the boss of the waiters of the Rising Star Restaurant, smiled. After accompanying the last customers of the lunch hour, she went into the office on the superior floor, where her husband, Sanosuke, had a loaded expression while he closed the month's balance of payments.
"Any problem?" she asked.
He lifted the eyes. "No, no problem."
Akane waited in silence. He continued.
"It's just that I don't know if I did the right thing in transmitting Gendo's request to Shinobu."
His wife's face became cold, as it always happened to be when her brother-in-law was mentioned, and she sighed.
"Well, all that we can do now is to pray that they don't make do anything stupid." Akane thought that Gendo and Kanoe deserved eachother: both had a terrible genius, as if they believed that they would never be happy and wanted to share with others around them the same fate. Her husband was very well aware of that: he had been a victim of his brother's omnipresent rage. She didn't understand how a sweet and gentle young girl like Shinobu managed to survive their anger.
"I think you are right, dear." he sighed, resigned.
======
Two days later, Motoko studied for the Entrance Exam for the University of Tokyo when the silence of the Hinata Inn was interrupted by the phone. As she was the only inhabitant inside of the building at that moment, she went down the stairway and answered:
"Hello, Hinata Inn Girls Dorm."
"M-Motoko??" The voice trembled, sobbing with cold and fear. It was so distorted that the ronin didn't recognize.
"Who are you?" She asked confused.
"It's... me, S-Shinobu..."
"Shinobu?!" Motoko exclaimed in shock. "What happened? Where are you?"
The scared girl ignored the question.
"Motoko, please... come take me back! Please!" Shinobu implored among sobs.
"Sure, Shinobu, I will go right now! But you need to tell me where you are!"
"I'm in..." The connection was interrupted.
"Shinobu? Shinobu?!?"
======
In Osaka, a girl looked despaired at the silent phone. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her eyes were red. She began to walk through the corridors of the commercial center.
"What happened?" she asked herself, with terror. She tried to reconstitute what had happened with her since she had arrived in Osaka. After those two bodyguards dropped her in her parents' house, she had dinner with them. They smiled at her, promising that everything would be different, when she felt sleepy. Then everything diffused...
It seemed that she was tied in a chair, inside of a metal chamber, when two blinding lights, a green one and a blue one, illuminated the place. Her skin burned with that frightening light...
It seemed that she was floating in a transparent liquid, with several wires and tubes attached to her body...
Then she woke up in an alley, in that state.
"My God, what happened to me???"
======
Three hours after Shinobu's phone call, Keitaro, Naru, Motoko, Kitsune, Mutsumi and Kaolla disembarked in Osaka.
"Didn't she say where she was?" Kitsune asked Motoko.
"No. The connection ended before she had the chance to tell me!"
Naru assumed the command:
"All right, we will do this: Keitaro and I will verify the hotels, Motoko and Kitsune will verify the hospitals, Mutsumi will try to get in contact with Shinobu's parents and Kaolla will try find her with her machines. Let's go!"
And the search for Shinobu began.
Late of night, Keitaro and Naru, after checking each hotel and inn of the city, took a shortcut through a commercial center that was open twenty-four hours a day. There they met with Motoko: she also had no news.
"I don't understand! Where is she?" Motoko exclaimed. In that instant, the stomaches of the three growled. And all three blushed.
"I... I will get something for us to eat."
"Ok, meanwhile I'm going to go to the bathroom." Naru informed.
"I shall accompany you, Urashima."
After they purchased some sandwiches and glasses of hot tea, Motoko and Keitaro sat down at a table. Then, a small form approached of them, with their head lowered, and asked weakly:
"Please, sir, but could I eat one of your sandwiches? I'm hungry."
When Keitaro lifted his eyes to answer, he had the shock of his life.
"S-Shinobu?!?!!" he exclaimed, not believing his friend's state.
"Shinobu?!?" Motoko repeated, not less shocked.
Only then, the girl seemed to recognize them. Her lips shook. "Keitaro? Motoko?" She said, as if she didn't believe it. Then she hugged them with all her force, as a man drowning holds onto a buoy.
They asked, broken-hearted, what had happened. But Shinobu didn't answer, she just hugged them with more force while her fragile body shook...
======
"I don't like any of this!" Motoko exclaimed for whoever wanted to hear. It was one week since they had brought Shinobu back. During that whole time, she had been locked in her bedroom, crying silently. She didn't answer any questions about Osaka...
"I don't like it either, Motoko, but what can we do?" Keitaro asked.
"Help Shinomu!" Kaolla practically screamed in stereo.
"How?" Now it was Kitsune, concerned.
"We don't know, Fox-girl!" Sarah MacDougal yelled.
Naru was the voice of reason.
"Shinobu decided to return today to the school, then what we can do is support her and let her know that we are here to help her."
Nobody seemed to like that, but they didn't have alternatives.
"Please God, help Shinobu..." Keitaro asked in silence.
======
Later that same day, Mikuki Kim entered into the Sprawl Snack Bar and went into the feminine bathroom and entered into one of the stalls. She waited for some minutes, before she heard the door of the bathroom open up. She heard the steps that approached from where she was and saw underneath of the door the pair of short-piped black boots. The owner of the boots entered in the stalls at the side. The newcomer whistled a part of a popular music and Mikuki answered.
Done with the recognition, Mikuki said:
"You are late!"
The other person didn't answer. She just passed underneath the stalls an envelope. Mikuki opened immediately. It was full of money. She smiled.
"What do you want me to do?"
The woman at the side explained what she wanted.
Mikuki smiled:
"Very well, boss!"
The corrupt student left. Upset the annoying Shinobu Maehara and be payed for it?? Life could not be better!
======
"Please, leave me alone!" Shinobu implored.
"Leave me alone..." Marin made fun of the cry. Megani, Mikuki and her were pushing Shinobu to and fro in the deserted school gym. The three high school students had prepared that trap with great care: first they had sent an anonymous note, asking that the fool Shinobu go the gym after class... And now, Mikuki, Megani and Marin had fun as never before!
Marin held Shinobu's arms while Mikuki held her chin with force.
"Why are you doing this?!"
Mikuki assumed an innocent face. "Amusement, perhaps?" Then she kicked the shy girl's stomach, that bend down, turning target for another kick, this time in the head. The poor girl fell in her back.
The attackers looked at eachother with predator smiles. Mikuki commented:
"You know... I always wondered if she only had the face of a little girl or the whole body... now we can verify."
While the trio approached, Shinobu took her right hand to the lips and felt a hot and sticky liquid. She looked at for the own hand: it was red... blood...
Her blood...
It was affirmed that red is the color of rage: for Shinobu, it was the trigger. The rage appeared inside of her, violent, uncontrollable. Shinobu began to feel indescribable pains, at the same time that her thoughts became more audacious, more furious, more dangerous. She felt her entire body strengthen, and grow, as if she discovered a powerful source of energy inside of her. It was as if she was becoming... another person in that very moment.
The new Shinobu turned and looked at the trio, that now tried hopelessly to open the door that they had locked in order to trap her. Smiling, Shinobu stood up and noticed, to her surprise that now she was taller, much taller and much stronger. And she was delighted with this new change.
She stepped on the ground with such force that the whole building shook from its foundations. Mikuki, Megani and Marin shook in fear of the monster that was with them... they were afraid of her...
Now, she was not the defenseless Shinobu... now she was a new being... invulnerable, invincible!
With a wild yell of rage, she leaped in direction of her targets... or better, her victims...
To be continued...