Haruka
was left with the uncomfortable feeling that she must be quite thoroughly
insane. Indeed, absolutely, institutionalize-ably, stark raving mad. Her
sea-green haired visitor had completely sold her on this wild story of destinies,
antique mirrors, mysterious forces, and troubling visions; all things that
Haruka would have expected herself to find utterly ridiculous. Today, however,
she had believed Michiru as the girl told her about the re-occurring vision of
Haruka within the surface of the lovely, ancient silver mirror that she had
drawn from her bag. "This all must sound quite laughable, Haruka-san,
especially coming from someone who might as well be a complete stranger, but I
feel that we will be very important to each other. Somehow, I feel we may also
be simply very important." Haruka refused to think about it any longer, she
proceeded into the living room with her luke-warm coffee and set about thinking
of more pleasant things. Or would have, if she could have thought of any. All
she could think of were the dark clouds of dream images that Michiru's words
had summoned up: dark, vast expanses of emptiness whipped constantly by gale
winds, starry voids filled with hidden demons, swirling silver- white hair and
magnanimous, if plastic smiles, and the shining blade of what could only be the
ancient family sword, that any Tenoh would tell you had belonged to some great
prince or princess of some country, the name of which none could agree on. In
reality, of course, the sword was now nothing but a tarnished hilt; the blade
long since rusted away. Haruka wondered idly where the sword was now; which of
her horrid, bickering, hateful relatives had laid their greedy paws on the
family treasures which were 'rightfully theirs'. Truth be told, she wouldn't
have cared, she had no use for the Tenoh family grudge match, but she was
suddenly over come with a desire to hold the hilt of the blade in her hand, and
trace her fingers along the elegant silver- working. It hit her with the force
of a bullet train: the style of the metal work in the hilt matched that of
Michiru's mirror! She had to stop thinking about all of this rubbish.
Abandoning her untouched coffee on one of the small tables that sided the sofa,
she fetched her coat from the hall closet and, before leaving, announced to the
apartment, "I've gone to find myself a loony bin, don't burn down yourself
while I'm gone."
Luck, coincidences, and a small world be damned! As soon as she had settled
into a comfortably grungy booth in a comfortably grungy food- serving
establishment of some indistinguishable variety, in walked none other than the
lovely Kaioh Michiru, accompanied by the scum of the earth. Or, at least, a boy
who looked like he could have been the spokesman for the scum of the earth. He
was filthy, torn and over-bleached, and his clothes were worse. The most truly
offensive part of him was, of course, the sharp contrast he made to Michiru's
elegant fall garb, and shining cleanliness. Haruka would have like nothing
better than to dislocate the arm he had slung about the green haired girl's
waist. Well, that wasn't strictly true, what she would have liked better was to
be several blocks (if not cities, prefects, countries, or continents) away from
the lovely cause of her mental discomfort. She slunk down in her booth, waited
until they had seated themselves at the counter, and then slunk out. All right,
so bad food and grungy atmosphere were not going to solve her mystic mood. When
in doubt, rent a bad American horror flick. After two episodes of the Friday
the 13th series (dubbed, as she had hardly felt up to exercising her English) she
was feeling much better, in a strange, adolescent 'blood is funny' sort of way,
and felt she could probably go to sleep with immunity.
Haruka did not, however, go to sleep. She shed her clothing and lowered herself
into bed, closed her eyes, in complete mental peace. She was instantly
assaulted by the image of her father holding the ancient silver hilt up in the
light of a lamp, squinting at the patterns. Kevin Tenoh-Darling, the American
liberal who had been more like a good friend than a father. When she asked for
a bed time story he read to her from his own books, and always allowed her
exposure to any and all media he himself made use of. Her father had always
treated her like an adult, spoke to her calmly and reasonably, been supportive
of her aspirations, and rational in the face of her tempers. He had been her
accomplice in many a crime, had taken her to see her first race, and had driven
her to school on his classy silver BMW motorcycle. He had hated the quarrels of
his wife's family, called them petty, meaningless. It was from him that Haruka
had learned her distaste for the needlessly hateful. He was gentle and loving
with his wife, raucous and fun loving with his friends and everything to his
only child, his lovely girl who would have killed to be his little boy. Haruka
had always wanted to be her father. They had spent a summer at her
grandmother's home once, and, to avoid the cousins and aunts and uncles, the
bickering, and the disapproving glances, 30 year old man and 12 year old girl
had spent there days outside of the house, or hidden in the attic. They had
pored over the old treasures of her mother's family in a most irreverent
fashion. Cries of 'junk' echoed through the dusty vault as they scrambled
through boxes for days on end, until, "Look at this!" He held her
mother's coveted heirloom up to the light, wonderingly, for a moment, before
tucking it into his jacket. It had remained with them for two years until her
mother's death, and then. Her father had sent it to his family! Her eyes snapped
open; she knew where to find the sword!
