Suzumi could not say anything or do anything but try to restrain Hitomi,
Suzumi's pale eyes darkening, and light skin slowly becoming darker.
Hitomi's eyes, glowing heavily, burned their way into Suzumi, who now grew
limp, and did not struggle anymore; all she did was glare at Hitomi, who
had loosened her grip, letting Suzumi fall to the ground, half conscious.
"You..." Suzumi muttered as she lunged at Hitomi, knocking her over, and her black mist of hair turned back into golden-brown. Suzumi flipped Hitomi over, glaring at Hitomi's frightened eyes. Hitomi was shaking horribly, tears starting to fill her eyes as she saw Suzumi's hair suddenly grow slightly long, and suddenly change short again. "Sorry," Suzumi paused, letting go of Hitomi's shoulders and placing her right hand over hear forehead and walking over to the cabinet, retrieving a new bottle and a cup, filling the cup with hot water.
Hitomi stood up, and clearly confused, she asked shyly, "Where am I?"
Suzumi, adding the contents of the flask to the water, and stirring it with a beige chopstick, replied, "There is a legend, I am sure you have heard it, of the Tennyo who lost her Hagaromo." Handing Hitomi the cup, she simply ordered, "Drink." Suzumi studied the cuts on Hitomi's face, arms, legs, and torso, as she commanded again, "Drink."
Frightened and trembling, Hitomi took the cup and answered blandly, "Yes." She brought the cup to her lips, smelling the light smell of mint and vanilla. Hitomi willingly drank it, taking a small sip, burning the tip of her tongue.
"Drink it while it's hot," Suzumi responded to Hitomi's arrogant looking face. "Come, we need to sit and talk." Suzumi led Hitomi to a large room where a square wooden table sat, with light pink cherry blossoms lining the edge. "Please, sit," Suzumi presumed.
Hitomi sat on the mat, gulping the contents down her throat, all the while thinking to herself, "Why am I drinking this? I don't even know this lady, and I am accepting drinks from her. What if it is poisoned?" But the other half of her mind retorted, "She seems vaguely familiar, I just kind of, know I can trust her..."
"The story of the Tennyo, the fairy maiden, who had removed her Hagaromo to bathe in the lake one day on Earth," Suzumi continued. "You know the story, correct?"
Stupidly, Hitomi shook her head. "I know it, but I want to make sure I know it," she thought to herself as she held the cup in her hands.
Suzumi sighed deeply, and began, "The story of the Tennyo is passed down from generation to generation, and while other countries have their own versions, the one of Japan, is quite true. You see, a human man took this Tennyo's Hagaromo, and the Tennyo could not return home without it. While the man acted as though he did not know where the Tennyo's Hagaromo was, he told her he would give it to her if she married him.
"With no other choice, the Tennyo had to agree, for she could not return home, and so they were married. The Tennyo gave birth, and thus from her children's nursery rhyme, she found out where her Hagaromo was hidden, and she flew home to Heaven, leaving her children and husband behind.
"Her children, blessed with Tennyo blood, consisted of one girl and one boy, and it has been kept a secret for years, though the Tennyo blood has been passed down from generation to generation in the Mikage family.
"I myself have some Tennyo blood, although not all the pure powers...and the Mikage consider that as a C-Genoma, a project they have started to run, according to Tooya."
"Tooya?" Hitomi questioned, who had stayed silent the whole time, listening contently.
"You will see him soon," Suzumi replied. "Please, I must finish."
Hitomi nodded, and Suzumi continued, "The C-Genoma project is still unclear, but only the Mikage family is of pure-blood Tennyo's, and the curious thing is, you are a pureblood, but not of the Mikage." Suzumi paused a moment, furrowed her eyebrows and explained, "You see, the Mikage prefer to have cousins married, so the C-Genoma type will not continue expanding and for tens of years, they have, but you are not even closely related to the Mikage, yet you still posses the Tennyo blood.
"It also confuses me though, that nobody in your family history has even had a bit of Tennyo blood, none at all, and no relatives. This is where we must figure out how this happens. The Mikage are not searching for you, but their own family's Tennyo pureblood, who has run away, and her twin brother, is their success. While most Tennyo blood resides in females, her brother possesses some strange Tennyo forces.
"Although this has nothing to do with you, you must be aware of this. The Mikage girl, the Tennyo that resides in her, the one that stayed behind, left a trace, and is trying to find her Hagaromo, as if the legend is being relived, and we do not know if your Tennyo is the same or not.
"Do I make any sense at all?" Suzumi asked, looking up from her hands, which had been fumbling slightly.
Hitomi had fallen asleep, her hands still around the cup and her head on the table. Suzumi dipped her head low and screamed into her hands. She went to the door and opened it, shouting at the top of her lungs, "YUUHI! YUUHI, COME HERE NOW!!!"
For a moment, nothing happened, and Suzumi sat at the head of the door, glaring at the entrance of the hallway. She was boiling inside, and shouted again even louder, "YUUHI! GET OVER HERE NOW! BEFORE I DESTROY YOUR WHOLE ROOM AND THROW AWAY ALL YOUR CD'S!!!"
Yuuhi, panicking, sweating, ran over, and glaring at Suzumi, retorted, "Don't...you...dare."
"Oh yes, I would," Suzumi replied pleasantly. "Now, please take Hitomi to bed, she is dreadfully tired. Arigato, Yuuhi."
Yuuhi smirked, and went in the room, gently picking up Hitomi and shuffled out and to her room, where Suzumi was preparing fresh sheets. Yuuhi gently laid Hitomi down and snatched the sheet from Suzumi and covered Hitomi, then sulked off to his own room and turned on his music, taking the volume down to minimum.
"You silly girl," Suzumi chuckled, as she slithered out and closed the door behind her. She went to the kitchen, where Yuuhi was continuing his dinner, again listening to his Walkman.
Suzumi solemnly went to the cabinet, right next to Yuuhi, where he was dicing some vegetables, shooting glances at his back just in case of some...intruders. Suzumi removed a goblet and a chalky white tablet the size of a quarter and on the counter behind Yuuhi, started smashing it gently. Suzumi poured the contents of the goblet into a black flask and added some tealeaves and cold water. She shook the bottle with her forefinger at the opening and left the kitchen just as Yuuhi turned around to check again.
The hall was quiet and it seemed as if Tooya had left, but as Suzumi passed by his room, she heard small footsteps and swishing. Suzumi walked a little further, and turned in on Hitomi's room, and opened the door. Hitomi was sleeping soundly, face half smiling, dreaming away.
Suzumi kneeled down next to Hitomi, and held her chin straight, opening her mouth slightly, and dumping the fluid into Hitomi's mouth. Then Suzumi dropped Hitomi's face, and left, closing the door and retreating to her own room.
The corridor was empty, and the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. She walked alone, a fish on land, suffocated from that gulp of fresh air that it needed. Her sobs reached the end of the hall, where all was dark and the sun could not reach her. The girl sat on the floor in the corner, and a young man with tousled black hair, his hands in his pocket, looking outside at the streams of light, was walking towards her.
He reached her and sat down next to her one leg out, one leg in, and said, "Hello, Hitomi-san."
Hitomi, who did not see him or hear him sit down, looked up and her eyes filled with even more tears, emptying onto her cheeks as she smiled deeply and tearfully cried, "Kano!" and they embraced.
Suddenly, he began to dissolve, and Hitomi began crying again, calling out her brother's name as he vanished, "Kano! KANO!! Don't leave me!!"
Hitomi shot up, sweating and crying. The recurring nightmare she had been having, would not give up. There must be a sign as to why she was having these dreams...but at the moment Hitomi had thought of something reasonable, she heard a large CRAACK and a female voice shouting at the top of her lungs, "YUUHI, YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!!"
"NOT IF I CAN HELP IT! IT'S YOUR FAULT THE-" Yuuhi screamed.
"OH NO YOU DON'T. YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO, YOU...YOU...YOU SHIT HEAD!"
Hitomi heard Suzumi trudging back, so she crawled back to bed and pretended to sleep, but Suzumi had come to wake her up. "Hitomi-san, wake up," she whispered.
Hitomi turned around and replied, "I'm already awake, and your shouting kind of woke me up."
Suzumi grimaced and said, "Sorry, but Yuuhi broke an important medicine." She shook her head slightly and explained to Hitomi, "The medicine was for you, so see if your Tennyo powers are true and not just temporary...but now we don't have any."
Hitomi vaguely remembered the beginning of the story of the Tennyo, and did not know what Suzumi was talking about, so she just didn't say anything. Glancing at the door, which Suzumi did not close completely, Hitomi saw Yuuhi walking to his room, and the door slam shut. "Are you hungry?" Suzumi asked as she heard Hitomi's stomach growl.
Rubbing her stomach and laughing, Hitomi replied, "Yes, I'm very hungry."
"Come on," Suzumi said, standing up. Hitomi got up and followed Suzumi to the kitchen, and opening the refrigerator door, Suzumi warmly gestured, "You can raid the refrigerator of anything you like. We need to have an important talk about this." Hitomi nodded and stuck her upper body into the refrigerator, and came out holding some ham, rice, raw Mackerel, an orange and asked Suzumi, "Where's the soy sauce?" Suzumi handed Hitomi a large plastic bottle filled to the top with the brownish black liquid. "And wasabi!!" Hitomi quickly added.
Suzumi opened the refrigerator and remove a large plastic-wrapped pack of wasabi. She removed the plastic wrap and pulled out a wad of wasabi and placed it in a small dish. Hitomi placed all the food on the counter opposite to where Suzumi was sitting, and plopped herself down, massaging the wasabi with her fingers to soften it. Hitomi removed the covers and plastic wrap of the dishes and went to heat up the rice.
Hitomi sat down, and Suzumi began her story again, with Hitomi listening contently, and keeping her eye on the rice the whole time. When it beeped, Suzumi paused momentarily and waited for Hitomi to get the rice, and Suzumi brought her chopsticks. Hitomi began eating, listening again.
By the time Hitomi had finished eating, Suzumi had finished her story ten minutes earlier, and had made some tea for the both of them. "You see why you are so important to this legend? It is your destiny to reveal your Celestial Maiden, you Tennyo, and to reveal the strength of a non-Tennyo blood human. You have no trace of history related to the Mikage's, yet you are of Tennyo blood."
Hitomi, who had taken in every detail had spoken. "I was late, and then this little girl who was all white and light blonde, dropped this sword- snake-dragon in my hands and gave me the two wounds under the cloth you bound on my hands," Hitomi explained. "The necklace attached itself to me, and I can't take it off...and why do I have these wounds all over my body?"
"I do not know the answer to that question," Suzumi replied, and cleared the dishes, but Hitomi fought over and won, and she washed and dried the dishes willingly. "You see," Suzumi said, as she stood next to Hitomi and eyed her most treasure porcelain plate, "you are an important piece to the Mikage, though they do not give a wit for you, only their Tennyo blood girl, Aya."
Hitomi closed her eyes for a moment as she dried the last dish and placed it on the rack and sighed. "Aya Mikage...I've heard that name before somewhere." Suddenly it hit her, Aya went to the same school as she did. "I know! We went to the same school!"
Suzumi gasped and answered, "The same school?"
"Yes," Hitomi replied. "I can't believe I didn't see it before, but it's true, we did."
Nodding her head, Suzumi agreed, "We must go to your school to find out if she's still there."
"Not likely," Hitomi retorted, "She didn't show up at school for the last three weeks of the semester, and never showed up for the second semester."
Suddenly, there was a loud thud at the door and the shouts of a girl, "Let me in, PLEASE!! Somebody is trying to kill me!!"
Suzumi sprinted to the door and opened it, gasping in shock and Hitomi, who had come running too, uttered the words, "Oh, my God..." and stood there, staring at the bleeding face of a girl with mussed blonde hair and amethyst eyes, tearing up with cuts all over her legs. "Aya Mikage," Hitomi muttered, and glaring evilly at her, she said, "So we meet again."
"You..." Suzumi muttered as she lunged at Hitomi, knocking her over, and her black mist of hair turned back into golden-brown. Suzumi flipped Hitomi over, glaring at Hitomi's frightened eyes. Hitomi was shaking horribly, tears starting to fill her eyes as she saw Suzumi's hair suddenly grow slightly long, and suddenly change short again. "Sorry," Suzumi paused, letting go of Hitomi's shoulders and placing her right hand over hear forehead and walking over to the cabinet, retrieving a new bottle and a cup, filling the cup with hot water.
Hitomi stood up, and clearly confused, she asked shyly, "Where am I?"
Suzumi, adding the contents of the flask to the water, and stirring it with a beige chopstick, replied, "There is a legend, I am sure you have heard it, of the Tennyo who lost her Hagaromo." Handing Hitomi the cup, she simply ordered, "Drink." Suzumi studied the cuts on Hitomi's face, arms, legs, and torso, as she commanded again, "Drink."
Frightened and trembling, Hitomi took the cup and answered blandly, "Yes." She brought the cup to her lips, smelling the light smell of mint and vanilla. Hitomi willingly drank it, taking a small sip, burning the tip of her tongue.
"Drink it while it's hot," Suzumi responded to Hitomi's arrogant looking face. "Come, we need to sit and talk." Suzumi led Hitomi to a large room where a square wooden table sat, with light pink cherry blossoms lining the edge. "Please, sit," Suzumi presumed.
Hitomi sat on the mat, gulping the contents down her throat, all the while thinking to herself, "Why am I drinking this? I don't even know this lady, and I am accepting drinks from her. What if it is poisoned?" But the other half of her mind retorted, "She seems vaguely familiar, I just kind of, know I can trust her..."
"The story of the Tennyo, the fairy maiden, who had removed her Hagaromo to bathe in the lake one day on Earth," Suzumi continued. "You know the story, correct?"
Stupidly, Hitomi shook her head. "I know it, but I want to make sure I know it," she thought to herself as she held the cup in her hands.
Suzumi sighed deeply, and began, "The story of the Tennyo is passed down from generation to generation, and while other countries have their own versions, the one of Japan, is quite true. You see, a human man took this Tennyo's Hagaromo, and the Tennyo could not return home without it. While the man acted as though he did not know where the Tennyo's Hagaromo was, he told her he would give it to her if she married him.
"With no other choice, the Tennyo had to agree, for she could not return home, and so they were married. The Tennyo gave birth, and thus from her children's nursery rhyme, she found out where her Hagaromo was hidden, and she flew home to Heaven, leaving her children and husband behind.
"Her children, blessed with Tennyo blood, consisted of one girl and one boy, and it has been kept a secret for years, though the Tennyo blood has been passed down from generation to generation in the Mikage family.
"I myself have some Tennyo blood, although not all the pure powers...and the Mikage consider that as a C-Genoma, a project they have started to run, according to Tooya."
"Tooya?" Hitomi questioned, who had stayed silent the whole time, listening contently.
"You will see him soon," Suzumi replied. "Please, I must finish."
Hitomi nodded, and Suzumi continued, "The C-Genoma project is still unclear, but only the Mikage family is of pure-blood Tennyo's, and the curious thing is, you are a pureblood, but not of the Mikage." Suzumi paused a moment, furrowed her eyebrows and explained, "You see, the Mikage prefer to have cousins married, so the C-Genoma type will not continue expanding and for tens of years, they have, but you are not even closely related to the Mikage, yet you still posses the Tennyo blood.
"It also confuses me though, that nobody in your family history has even had a bit of Tennyo blood, none at all, and no relatives. This is where we must figure out how this happens. The Mikage are not searching for you, but their own family's Tennyo pureblood, who has run away, and her twin brother, is their success. While most Tennyo blood resides in females, her brother possesses some strange Tennyo forces.
"Although this has nothing to do with you, you must be aware of this. The Mikage girl, the Tennyo that resides in her, the one that stayed behind, left a trace, and is trying to find her Hagaromo, as if the legend is being relived, and we do not know if your Tennyo is the same or not.
"Do I make any sense at all?" Suzumi asked, looking up from her hands, which had been fumbling slightly.
Hitomi had fallen asleep, her hands still around the cup and her head on the table. Suzumi dipped her head low and screamed into her hands. She went to the door and opened it, shouting at the top of her lungs, "YUUHI! YUUHI, COME HERE NOW!!!"
For a moment, nothing happened, and Suzumi sat at the head of the door, glaring at the entrance of the hallway. She was boiling inside, and shouted again even louder, "YUUHI! GET OVER HERE NOW! BEFORE I DESTROY YOUR WHOLE ROOM AND THROW AWAY ALL YOUR CD'S!!!"
Yuuhi, panicking, sweating, ran over, and glaring at Suzumi, retorted, "Don't...you...dare."
"Oh yes, I would," Suzumi replied pleasantly. "Now, please take Hitomi to bed, she is dreadfully tired. Arigato, Yuuhi."
Yuuhi smirked, and went in the room, gently picking up Hitomi and shuffled out and to her room, where Suzumi was preparing fresh sheets. Yuuhi gently laid Hitomi down and snatched the sheet from Suzumi and covered Hitomi, then sulked off to his own room and turned on his music, taking the volume down to minimum.
"You silly girl," Suzumi chuckled, as she slithered out and closed the door behind her. She went to the kitchen, where Yuuhi was continuing his dinner, again listening to his Walkman.
Suzumi solemnly went to the cabinet, right next to Yuuhi, where he was dicing some vegetables, shooting glances at his back just in case of some...intruders. Suzumi removed a goblet and a chalky white tablet the size of a quarter and on the counter behind Yuuhi, started smashing it gently. Suzumi poured the contents of the goblet into a black flask and added some tealeaves and cold water. She shook the bottle with her forefinger at the opening and left the kitchen just as Yuuhi turned around to check again.
The hall was quiet and it seemed as if Tooya had left, but as Suzumi passed by his room, she heard small footsteps and swishing. Suzumi walked a little further, and turned in on Hitomi's room, and opened the door. Hitomi was sleeping soundly, face half smiling, dreaming away.
Suzumi kneeled down next to Hitomi, and held her chin straight, opening her mouth slightly, and dumping the fluid into Hitomi's mouth. Then Suzumi dropped Hitomi's face, and left, closing the door and retreating to her own room.
The corridor was empty, and the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. She walked alone, a fish on land, suffocated from that gulp of fresh air that it needed. Her sobs reached the end of the hall, where all was dark and the sun could not reach her. The girl sat on the floor in the corner, and a young man with tousled black hair, his hands in his pocket, looking outside at the streams of light, was walking towards her.
He reached her and sat down next to her one leg out, one leg in, and said, "Hello, Hitomi-san."
Hitomi, who did not see him or hear him sit down, looked up and her eyes filled with even more tears, emptying onto her cheeks as she smiled deeply and tearfully cried, "Kano!" and they embraced.
Suddenly, he began to dissolve, and Hitomi began crying again, calling out her brother's name as he vanished, "Kano! KANO!! Don't leave me!!"
Hitomi shot up, sweating and crying. The recurring nightmare she had been having, would not give up. There must be a sign as to why she was having these dreams...but at the moment Hitomi had thought of something reasonable, she heard a large CRAACK and a female voice shouting at the top of her lungs, "YUUHI, YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!!"
"NOT IF I CAN HELP IT! IT'S YOUR FAULT THE-" Yuuhi screamed.
"OH NO YOU DON'T. YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO, YOU...YOU...YOU SHIT HEAD!"
Hitomi heard Suzumi trudging back, so she crawled back to bed and pretended to sleep, but Suzumi had come to wake her up. "Hitomi-san, wake up," she whispered.
Hitomi turned around and replied, "I'm already awake, and your shouting kind of woke me up."
Suzumi grimaced and said, "Sorry, but Yuuhi broke an important medicine." She shook her head slightly and explained to Hitomi, "The medicine was for you, so see if your Tennyo powers are true and not just temporary...but now we don't have any."
Hitomi vaguely remembered the beginning of the story of the Tennyo, and did not know what Suzumi was talking about, so she just didn't say anything. Glancing at the door, which Suzumi did not close completely, Hitomi saw Yuuhi walking to his room, and the door slam shut. "Are you hungry?" Suzumi asked as she heard Hitomi's stomach growl.
Rubbing her stomach and laughing, Hitomi replied, "Yes, I'm very hungry."
"Come on," Suzumi said, standing up. Hitomi got up and followed Suzumi to the kitchen, and opening the refrigerator door, Suzumi warmly gestured, "You can raid the refrigerator of anything you like. We need to have an important talk about this." Hitomi nodded and stuck her upper body into the refrigerator, and came out holding some ham, rice, raw Mackerel, an orange and asked Suzumi, "Where's the soy sauce?" Suzumi handed Hitomi a large plastic bottle filled to the top with the brownish black liquid. "And wasabi!!" Hitomi quickly added.
Suzumi opened the refrigerator and remove a large plastic-wrapped pack of wasabi. She removed the plastic wrap and pulled out a wad of wasabi and placed it in a small dish. Hitomi placed all the food on the counter opposite to where Suzumi was sitting, and plopped herself down, massaging the wasabi with her fingers to soften it. Hitomi removed the covers and plastic wrap of the dishes and went to heat up the rice.
Hitomi sat down, and Suzumi began her story again, with Hitomi listening contently, and keeping her eye on the rice the whole time. When it beeped, Suzumi paused momentarily and waited for Hitomi to get the rice, and Suzumi brought her chopsticks. Hitomi began eating, listening again.
By the time Hitomi had finished eating, Suzumi had finished her story ten minutes earlier, and had made some tea for the both of them. "You see why you are so important to this legend? It is your destiny to reveal your Celestial Maiden, you Tennyo, and to reveal the strength of a non-Tennyo blood human. You have no trace of history related to the Mikage's, yet you are of Tennyo blood."
Hitomi, who had taken in every detail had spoken. "I was late, and then this little girl who was all white and light blonde, dropped this sword- snake-dragon in my hands and gave me the two wounds under the cloth you bound on my hands," Hitomi explained. "The necklace attached itself to me, and I can't take it off...and why do I have these wounds all over my body?"
"I do not know the answer to that question," Suzumi replied, and cleared the dishes, but Hitomi fought over and won, and she washed and dried the dishes willingly. "You see," Suzumi said, as she stood next to Hitomi and eyed her most treasure porcelain plate, "you are an important piece to the Mikage, though they do not give a wit for you, only their Tennyo blood girl, Aya."
Hitomi closed her eyes for a moment as she dried the last dish and placed it on the rack and sighed. "Aya Mikage...I've heard that name before somewhere." Suddenly it hit her, Aya went to the same school as she did. "I know! We went to the same school!"
Suzumi gasped and answered, "The same school?"
"Yes," Hitomi replied. "I can't believe I didn't see it before, but it's true, we did."
Nodding her head, Suzumi agreed, "We must go to your school to find out if she's still there."
"Not likely," Hitomi retorted, "She didn't show up at school for the last three weeks of the semester, and never showed up for the second semester."
Suddenly, there was a loud thud at the door and the shouts of a girl, "Let me in, PLEASE!! Somebody is trying to kill me!!"
Suzumi sprinted to the door and opened it, gasping in shock and Hitomi, who had come running too, uttered the words, "Oh, my God..." and stood there, staring at the bleeding face of a girl with mussed blonde hair and amethyst eyes, tearing up with cuts all over her legs. "Aya Mikage," Hitomi muttered, and glaring evilly at her, she said, "So we meet again."