Disclaimer: Sure I own Yu Yu Hakusho... just like I have an army of super-
intelligent squirrels poised to take over the world as we speak.
Quote of the week: "Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot; everyone driving faster than you is a maniac." -Kevin (A proverb that my sister and I have grown up with.)
KKC: Well, I have good news! Having my laptop monitor trashed hasn't set me back at all.
Suzuka: So you got it fixed then?
KKC: ... ::stares off into space::
Grim: Well?
KKC: ......... no.
Grim/ Suzuka: ::anime face-fall::
KKC: oo Uh... y'know what? I think I'll just do a recap of last chapter... yeah. That's a good idea...
Cecilia's egg has hatched and has promptly imprinted Hiei as its mother. After Yukimi stopped by to do a check-up on the little one, whom is a female, Touya and Jin had a bit of a spat; the ice master highly doubts Jin's abilities, since our favorite red-haired flyboy has been slacking for quite some time now. Jin made a few rude comments himself, then wandered off to go sulk - and hasn't cheered up since ::gasp!:: . Since then, Kuwabara got a warning from his teacher, the enigmatic Laird Michealangelo, and was placed in charge of a very strange creature indeed - a golem. Apparently, things at the academy are going to go downhill, and soon.
########################################################################
A week had passed already, and still, those words had never stopped swimming around in his head. Things were going to get worse... as if losing any possible leads or meaning to this mission wasn't bad enough, something was going to wreck the entire lifestyle which he had come to know and care deeply about.
With a clatter, the familiar grinning skeleton reassembled himself from a pile of bleached bones under the bed and had jumped up to lay at Kuwabara's side. The teenager smiled in gratitude and patted Bones on the skull, ignoring the fleeting stings on his legs as the dog's whip-like tail wagged furiously. "I should stop worrying about all this, huh buddy?"
The green fire-fly eyes flared once, and Bones dislocated his skull, which went searching among the numerous books and dirty clothes underneath the bad, and finally floated back into place, with a rubber ball clutched in jaws. Kuwabara sweatdropped and sat up, picking up a textbook from the side of his bed. "Uh... I was thinking more along studying for the finals, actually." Sparing his pet a sympathetic look (it was amazing how a simple animated skeleton could show so much emotion - especially when dejected at a game of catch), Kuwabara wrestled the ball from between Bones' sharp teeth and held it up, giving his trademark doofus-smile.
"Alright, one throw."
Bones instantly scrambled onto the floor, falling apart and reconstructing himself all in one smooth motion, and patiently sat at the teenager's feet, his wagging tail and open mouth giving away any second thoughts about just how much he wanted to play. "Go get it, boy!" The red ball bounced out of the open door, ricocheted off the wall, and fell down the staircase, one step at a time, until it came to its eventual location in the living room.
Yusuke had only a split second to look up before Bones crashed over the table, snapping after a rubber bouncy ball that was slowly coming to a stop at his feet. The spirit detective yelped, jumping (and failing remarkably) to the side in order to dodge the incoming skeleton.
The dog's front legs slammed against the edge of the table, making the dog do a total flip in midair and fall apart in a jumble of bones that pelted Yusuke in the side and face. The ball bounced from Bones' jaws, taking flight once again and landing in Yusuke's glass of water, where it bobbed and floated among a pack of ice cubes. Brown eyes still wide, Yusuke peeked over the table top, and quickly, silently, slipped out his textbooks and notes from underneath the pile of bones that was, well, Bones.
With a drawn-out creak, the basement door inched open, and Rogerik poked his head out.
"What broke this time?"
"It wasn't me! This stupid mutt-" Yusuke pointed at Bones, but stopped short as the dog had once again pieced himself back together and was balefully staring at him with the most watery flickers of light that he could muster. "Ah, never mind..." With a sigh and grumbled string of curses, the spirit detective shuffled his papers into a more-or-less neat stack, piled his books up, and trudged upstairs. He didn't succeed in escaping the dog, however, as Bones, with the ball firmly clenched in his jaws, trotted after him.
The four or so figures sat on the floor and bed, open books strewn about and a large bowl, empty save for a few leftover popcorn kernels, was sitting in the middle of the group. Lark, her black hair tied up in a bun, sat against the foot of her sister's bed with a large book in her lap. She half-heartedly flipped through the yellowed pages, the text swimming in her vision.
"I hate Realism... I wish Shikyo would have us study Poe, instead." The younger sister whined, not really caring if anyone bothered to listen. Earlier, the conversation had been going just fine, until Lyra and Kurama had finally had a little too much of Lark's teasing. Holly was crouched over the notebook before her, hastily finishing up her essay, grumbling something to herself every now and again as her the ink stopped flowing freely from her pen and she angrily rewrote the few words that had been the victim of her pen's latest death. Kyuro was curled up on the foot of the bed, asleep, his black tail twitching subconsciously and stretching his little paws before twisting into a new sleeping position. Even Salvatore had fallen silent, choosing to sulkily balance on his perch, eyes screwed shut, and pretend to sleep as well.
"I don't think you study Poe until your next year - along with Aristotle - but it's not on the finals, so it makes sense you wouldn't really go over it yet." This was the first time Lyra had spoken since the height of her sister's teasing and jokes, and Lark almost jumped in surprise. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't hurt our grades on the test if we had read some of his stuff."
"Stop whining, then. You have the entire freaking collection of Poe, remember? I got the book for you for your birthday..." the rest of the sentence faded off as Holly gave a faint growl... apparently, her pen had gone to writing utensil heaven, and no amount of scratching and scribbling on the page's margin in her assignment book would make it come back again. "Dammit... Hey, Kurama, can you pass me that bag over there, by the speaker?" The redhead silently tossed it over, then once again dove back into his book, blatantly ignoring the girls. Lark narrowed her stormy eyes at him and stuck out her tongue.
"Jerk. If you're just going to ignore us, then go study on your own, then." With a sigh, Kurama marked his page and closed the book, then started to gather his belongings.
"H-hey! I was kidding! Really!" the water manipulator started to get up and yank the fox back down, but Kurama gave her a soft smile. "Well then, I guess after what you can come closest to as an apology, I just might stay."
"Eh? Now wait, I really am sorry about before - I'm not kidding."
"I know," Kurama replied simply, opening up his book again. "But don't tell me that I'm not allowed to play a few jokes myself." Lark, catching on, playfully shoved him. "You really are a jerk, you know that?"
"Now, children..."
"Stay out of it, witch."
"Don't make me summon my almighty broom of destruction and pain on you."
"Any day!"
"Uh, aren't you girls taking it a little too far?"
"No."
"Nu-uh!"
Listening to the good-natured bickering between her roommates and sister, Lyra smiled and toyed with a tattered sheet of paper, trying to forget the tiny spatters of blood among the scrunched-up, cursive writing. At the very least, she owed them all for trying to cheer her up; perhaps, her father really was fine, and he wasn't lying when he said that everything was going to be okay in the end.
Fog drifted through the streets of Meucca, never lifting, never thinning. It had rolled in from the sea, and had covered almost the entire city in the span of an hour, blocking out the moonlight and stars, the streetlamps useless and unable to pierce the sheets of gray.
Wrapping his jacket around himself even tighter, a grizzled old man rushed through the cobblestone streets; past the marble fountain that, although it had been the playground of young children earlier that afternoon, was now spewing dark water from the towering statue in the middle of the shallow pool. The fog curled and danced over the water's edge and in his wake as he passed by, the mist parted and dissipated in the elderly man's wake. With a grumble, he checked the digital watch that was tied to his wrist, and stared at the bright green LED numbers; his hand dropped to his side, as he looked around to make sure no one was coming by, then turned down one of the narrow, winding side streets.
The stoops were decorated with planters of flowers, all in a variety of bright and shocking colors for the summer, and a childish chalk drawing ran down the length of the sidewalk, not yet washed away by the mist and dew. A motorcycle was parked along the sidewalk in front of him, and he went around it, not bothering to step onto the sidewalk again as he strode down the middle of the street. In this ghoulish weather, even the partiers and ravers refused to step outside; there was no danger from automobiles or even the stray bicyclist.
Rays of light managed to poke through the solid curtain of fog, shining upon yet another fountain. Cherubs and nymphs danced in the mist, water spouting from the mouths of fish and dolphins; seated upon a bucking hippocampus was a likeliness of the goddess herself, slim hands wound into the steed's watery mane, long hair flowing in the invisible wind, her eyes bright and joyful, and a smile gracing her cold bronze lips. The man took a second to stare at the fountain, and quickly turned away - all he wanted now was to go home, have a steaming mug of tea, and climb into bed with his wife to await another sunlit morning.
There was a sudden flicker of green light over the water, then another, and another. He spared a glance over the water's surface, and shrugged, the fact that it was uncommon to see fireflies at all anymore not registering in his brain.
He just wanted out of this damn fog.
Picking up the pace, the old-timer nearly ran past the fountain, whipped around the corner of a brick building, and abruptly fell back on his rear. "Wha-?" He recovered his wallet and keys, both of which had been tossed askew in the collision, and looked up. The figure was tall and slim, with closely cropped hair that created a pale whitish-blue halo in the faint light; the face was close to androgynous in the fog, and the face was shadowed where the figure's eyes would be. "Uh, erm, I'm very sorry." The man stood up, stuffing his wallet and keys back into his coat pocket, and bowed his head politely to the figure in front of him.
Black fabric rustled, and a pale, almost milky-white, hand came to rest on his shoulder; he was vaguely aware of a gauzy lace brush against his face, and looked up into pale, empty eyes.
A deathly cold seemed to penetrate through the very flesh to his bones, and then some. Fireflies danced across his vision, lighting everything an eerie green even after everything else faded to black.
"Hey, look at this!" There was a cluster of students around one of the many picnic tables at the academy courtyard, and it seemed that a large sheet of paper was being passed around among them. Curious, Ryo quickly donned a disguise, changing his appearance from an elven-eared young man at about the height of five feet to that of a medium-tall, dark-skinned, young demon, with horns sprouting from his now olive-colored spiky hair, and he wore a pair of torn jeans and a slightly grungy tee-shirt instead of his usual button-down shirt, short over-robe, and dress pants. Catching his reflection in puddle of rainwater, he sighed and ran a clawed hand through his hair. "And to think that these clothes are considered fashionable... kids these days." Shaking his head sadly, the teacher tried his best to merge in with the group.
"Ewww... that sounds so disgusting!" A middle-school aged girl squealed and screwed her eyes shut, shoving the paper to the girl next to her. A similar expression crossed the features of the new bearer of the paper, but she quickly composed herself and passed the paper along. Now that it was closer, Ryo craned his neck a little, shoulder-reading the paper that was in the clawed hands of a short dog demon with scruffy brown hair, and his eyes opened wide.
It was a newspaper article... four pictures were above the article, each one a portrait, or something of the like, of a different person. All four were victims of a city-wide killing spree that had taken place just last night.
"Officials dated the bodies, and it seems that the killings took place at different times... no physical damage, but the bodies showed the strain of soul consumption... no clues or leads as to who the killer is..."
The dog demon rattled on, reading bits and pieces to his schoolmates, but Ryo ignored the rest. Quickly drawing away from the crowd, he walked past a cluster of younger girls, who gave him much more than just a second look and giggled; smitten blushes turned to confused looks as the fairly good- looking demon disappeared and a familiar teacher continued in the same direction. With a great deal of whispering and nervous laughter, the girls made haste away from the flaxen-haired demon. Running to and from classes, older students called out his name, greetings were yelled out, and one senior student gave the elf a friendly slap on the shoulder. Still, none of this registered.
Soul consumption...
It was a fate worse than death, or so he imagined. Even in Reikai, the souls of wrong-doers were never destroyed - locked up and confined, yes, but never completely and utterly annihilated. And then to be eaten... without meaning to, Ryo found himself trembling. Calming his nerves, he found himself standing outside his classroom door, one hand already on the large brass knob. Inside, his fourth-period students chatted away; some of them were discussing the newspaper article and ghoulish event of last night in hushed tones, but they were almost drowned out by the sheer amount of meaningless conversation. Who was dating who, the possibility of Mario beating Bruce Lee in hand-to-hand combat, what someone had named their pet traffic cone (A/N: I'm guilty of that one), and what was going to be on which teacher's final. All of it was perfectly frivolous, and quite stupid indeed, to be talking about when some poor creatures soul had been devoured not much more than twelve hours ago.
He wished he could be one of them, to just leave all of this to the "responsible adults", but remembered with a pang that HE was one of those "responsible adults" - and there was no way that the normal Ryo, one that wasn't trying to protect a bunch of children from the knowledge of a fate worse than death and was instead focusing all his energy towards editing the finals and preparing his students for their last test, wouldn't walk inside with anything less than a carefree smile on his face.
That's right... nothing's wrong. And if it is, it can wait until later...
Steadying himself and somehow forcing himself to smile, the elf turned the knob and stepped inside, cheerily calling out a "Good afternoon!" in an almost sing-song voice.
########################################################################
KKC: And the plot thickens.
Suzuka: o.o ? You... agh! How could you even bring that up! I-It's despicable!
Grim: Now you've done it...
KKC: What?
Suzuka: Do you have any idea how serious that is?! Huh? ::suddenly seems to grow ten feet tall:: HUH?!? DO YOU?!
KKC: ::cowers:: please don't kill me...
Suzuka: No, I won't kill you! I'll just rip out your very fiber and being, smother it, then stuff it down my goddamn throat so I can absorb it! And that's just the beginning, mind you!
Grim: -.-;; I thought she knew never to bring that up around demons... it's a touchy subject.
KKC: ::cowering under figurative table, and taking the verbal abuse rather well:: Gomen! Gomen! I'm sorry, really!
Suzuka: ::Ready to blow up at anyone who walks by:: You, of all people!
Grim: Uh... review, if you wish. ::mutters to self:: this ought to be interesting to watch...
Quote of the week: "Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot; everyone driving faster than you is a maniac." -Kevin (A proverb that my sister and I have grown up with.)
KKC: Well, I have good news! Having my laptop monitor trashed hasn't set me back at all.
Suzuka: So you got it fixed then?
KKC: ... ::stares off into space::
Grim: Well?
KKC: ......... no.
Grim/ Suzuka: ::anime face-fall::
KKC: oo Uh... y'know what? I think I'll just do a recap of last chapter... yeah. That's a good idea...
Cecilia's egg has hatched and has promptly imprinted Hiei as its mother. After Yukimi stopped by to do a check-up on the little one, whom is a female, Touya and Jin had a bit of a spat; the ice master highly doubts Jin's abilities, since our favorite red-haired flyboy has been slacking for quite some time now. Jin made a few rude comments himself, then wandered off to go sulk - and hasn't cheered up since ::gasp!:: . Since then, Kuwabara got a warning from his teacher, the enigmatic Laird Michealangelo, and was placed in charge of a very strange creature indeed - a golem. Apparently, things at the academy are going to go downhill, and soon.
########################################################################
A week had passed already, and still, those words had never stopped swimming around in his head. Things were going to get worse... as if losing any possible leads or meaning to this mission wasn't bad enough, something was going to wreck the entire lifestyle which he had come to know and care deeply about.
With a clatter, the familiar grinning skeleton reassembled himself from a pile of bleached bones under the bed and had jumped up to lay at Kuwabara's side. The teenager smiled in gratitude and patted Bones on the skull, ignoring the fleeting stings on his legs as the dog's whip-like tail wagged furiously. "I should stop worrying about all this, huh buddy?"
The green fire-fly eyes flared once, and Bones dislocated his skull, which went searching among the numerous books and dirty clothes underneath the bad, and finally floated back into place, with a rubber ball clutched in jaws. Kuwabara sweatdropped and sat up, picking up a textbook from the side of his bed. "Uh... I was thinking more along studying for the finals, actually." Sparing his pet a sympathetic look (it was amazing how a simple animated skeleton could show so much emotion - especially when dejected at a game of catch), Kuwabara wrestled the ball from between Bones' sharp teeth and held it up, giving his trademark doofus-smile.
"Alright, one throw."
Bones instantly scrambled onto the floor, falling apart and reconstructing himself all in one smooth motion, and patiently sat at the teenager's feet, his wagging tail and open mouth giving away any second thoughts about just how much he wanted to play. "Go get it, boy!" The red ball bounced out of the open door, ricocheted off the wall, and fell down the staircase, one step at a time, until it came to its eventual location in the living room.
Yusuke had only a split second to look up before Bones crashed over the table, snapping after a rubber bouncy ball that was slowly coming to a stop at his feet. The spirit detective yelped, jumping (and failing remarkably) to the side in order to dodge the incoming skeleton.
The dog's front legs slammed against the edge of the table, making the dog do a total flip in midair and fall apart in a jumble of bones that pelted Yusuke in the side and face. The ball bounced from Bones' jaws, taking flight once again and landing in Yusuke's glass of water, where it bobbed and floated among a pack of ice cubes. Brown eyes still wide, Yusuke peeked over the table top, and quickly, silently, slipped out his textbooks and notes from underneath the pile of bones that was, well, Bones.
With a drawn-out creak, the basement door inched open, and Rogerik poked his head out.
"What broke this time?"
"It wasn't me! This stupid mutt-" Yusuke pointed at Bones, but stopped short as the dog had once again pieced himself back together and was balefully staring at him with the most watery flickers of light that he could muster. "Ah, never mind..." With a sigh and grumbled string of curses, the spirit detective shuffled his papers into a more-or-less neat stack, piled his books up, and trudged upstairs. He didn't succeed in escaping the dog, however, as Bones, with the ball firmly clenched in his jaws, trotted after him.
The four or so figures sat on the floor and bed, open books strewn about and a large bowl, empty save for a few leftover popcorn kernels, was sitting in the middle of the group. Lark, her black hair tied up in a bun, sat against the foot of her sister's bed with a large book in her lap. She half-heartedly flipped through the yellowed pages, the text swimming in her vision.
"I hate Realism... I wish Shikyo would have us study Poe, instead." The younger sister whined, not really caring if anyone bothered to listen. Earlier, the conversation had been going just fine, until Lyra and Kurama had finally had a little too much of Lark's teasing. Holly was crouched over the notebook before her, hastily finishing up her essay, grumbling something to herself every now and again as her the ink stopped flowing freely from her pen and she angrily rewrote the few words that had been the victim of her pen's latest death. Kyuro was curled up on the foot of the bed, asleep, his black tail twitching subconsciously and stretching his little paws before twisting into a new sleeping position. Even Salvatore had fallen silent, choosing to sulkily balance on his perch, eyes screwed shut, and pretend to sleep as well.
"I don't think you study Poe until your next year - along with Aristotle - but it's not on the finals, so it makes sense you wouldn't really go over it yet." This was the first time Lyra had spoken since the height of her sister's teasing and jokes, and Lark almost jumped in surprise. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't hurt our grades on the test if we had read some of his stuff."
"Stop whining, then. You have the entire freaking collection of Poe, remember? I got the book for you for your birthday..." the rest of the sentence faded off as Holly gave a faint growl... apparently, her pen had gone to writing utensil heaven, and no amount of scratching and scribbling on the page's margin in her assignment book would make it come back again. "Dammit... Hey, Kurama, can you pass me that bag over there, by the speaker?" The redhead silently tossed it over, then once again dove back into his book, blatantly ignoring the girls. Lark narrowed her stormy eyes at him and stuck out her tongue.
"Jerk. If you're just going to ignore us, then go study on your own, then." With a sigh, Kurama marked his page and closed the book, then started to gather his belongings.
"H-hey! I was kidding! Really!" the water manipulator started to get up and yank the fox back down, but Kurama gave her a soft smile. "Well then, I guess after what you can come closest to as an apology, I just might stay."
"Eh? Now wait, I really am sorry about before - I'm not kidding."
"I know," Kurama replied simply, opening up his book again. "But don't tell me that I'm not allowed to play a few jokes myself." Lark, catching on, playfully shoved him. "You really are a jerk, you know that?"
"Now, children..."
"Stay out of it, witch."
"Don't make me summon my almighty broom of destruction and pain on you."
"Any day!"
"Uh, aren't you girls taking it a little too far?"
"No."
"Nu-uh!"
Listening to the good-natured bickering between her roommates and sister, Lyra smiled and toyed with a tattered sheet of paper, trying to forget the tiny spatters of blood among the scrunched-up, cursive writing. At the very least, she owed them all for trying to cheer her up; perhaps, her father really was fine, and he wasn't lying when he said that everything was going to be okay in the end.
Fog drifted through the streets of Meucca, never lifting, never thinning. It had rolled in from the sea, and had covered almost the entire city in the span of an hour, blocking out the moonlight and stars, the streetlamps useless and unable to pierce the sheets of gray.
Wrapping his jacket around himself even tighter, a grizzled old man rushed through the cobblestone streets; past the marble fountain that, although it had been the playground of young children earlier that afternoon, was now spewing dark water from the towering statue in the middle of the shallow pool. The fog curled and danced over the water's edge and in his wake as he passed by, the mist parted and dissipated in the elderly man's wake. With a grumble, he checked the digital watch that was tied to his wrist, and stared at the bright green LED numbers; his hand dropped to his side, as he looked around to make sure no one was coming by, then turned down one of the narrow, winding side streets.
The stoops were decorated with planters of flowers, all in a variety of bright and shocking colors for the summer, and a childish chalk drawing ran down the length of the sidewalk, not yet washed away by the mist and dew. A motorcycle was parked along the sidewalk in front of him, and he went around it, not bothering to step onto the sidewalk again as he strode down the middle of the street. In this ghoulish weather, even the partiers and ravers refused to step outside; there was no danger from automobiles or even the stray bicyclist.
Rays of light managed to poke through the solid curtain of fog, shining upon yet another fountain. Cherubs and nymphs danced in the mist, water spouting from the mouths of fish and dolphins; seated upon a bucking hippocampus was a likeliness of the goddess herself, slim hands wound into the steed's watery mane, long hair flowing in the invisible wind, her eyes bright and joyful, and a smile gracing her cold bronze lips. The man took a second to stare at the fountain, and quickly turned away - all he wanted now was to go home, have a steaming mug of tea, and climb into bed with his wife to await another sunlit morning.
There was a sudden flicker of green light over the water, then another, and another. He spared a glance over the water's surface, and shrugged, the fact that it was uncommon to see fireflies at all anymore not registering in his brain.
He just wanted out of this damn fog.
Picking up the pace, the old-timer nearly ran past the fountain, whipped around the corner of a brick building, and abruptly fell back on his rear. "Wha-?" He recovered his wallet and keys, both of which had been tossed askew in the collision, and looked up. The figure was tall and slim, with closely cropped hair that created a pale whitish-blue halo in the faint light; the face was close to androgynous in the fog, and the face was shadowed where the figure's eyes would be. "Uh, erm, I'm very sorry." The man stood up, stuffing his wallet and keys back into his coat pocket, and bowed his head politely to the figure in front of him.
Black fabric rustled, and a pale, almost milky-white, hand came to rest on his shoulder; he was vaguely aware of a gauzy lace brush against his face, and looked up into pale, empty eyes.
A deathly cold seemed to penetrate through the very flesh to his bones, and then some. Fireflies danced across his vision, lighting everything an eerie green even after everything else faded to black.
"Hey, look at this!" There was a cluster of students around one of the many picnic tables at the academy courtyard, and it seemed that a large sheet of paper was being passed around among them. Curious, Ryo quickly donned a disguise, changing his appearance from an elven-eared young man at about the height of five feet to that of a medium-tall, dark-skinned, young demon, with horns sprouting from his now olive-colored spiky hair, and he wore a pair of torn jeans and a slightly grungy tee-shirt instead of his usual button-down shirt, short over-robe, and dress pants. Catching his reflection in puddle of rainwater, he sighed and ran a clawed hand through his hair. "And to think that these clothes are considered fashionable... kids these days." Shaking his head sadly, the teacher tried his best to merge in with the group.
"Ewww... that sounds so disgusting!" A middle-school aged girl squealed and screwed her eyes shut, shoving the paper to the girl next to her. A similar expression crossed the features of the new bearer of the paper, but she quickly composed herself and passed the paper along. Now that it was closer, Ryo craned his neck a little, shoulder-reading the paper that was in the clawed hands of a short dog demon with scruffy brown hair, and his eyes opened wide.
It was a newspaper article... four pictures were above the article, each one a portrait, or something of the like, of a different person. All four were victims of a city-wide killing spree that had taken place just last night.
"Officials dated the bodies, and it seems that the killings took place at different times... no physical damage, but the bodies showed the strain of soul consumption... no clues or leads as to who the killer is..."
The dog demon rattled on, reading bits and pieces to his schoolmates, but Ryo ignored the rest. Quickly drawing away from the crowd, he walked past a cluster of younger girls, who gave him much more than just a second look and giggled; smitten blushes turned to confused looks as the fairly good- looking demon disappeared and a familiar teacher continued in the same direction. With a great deal of whispering and nervous laughter, the girls made haste away from the flaxen-haired demon. Running to and from classes, older students called out his name, greetings were yelled out, and one senior student gave the elf a friendly slap on the shoulder. Still, none of this registered.
Soul consumption...
It was a fate worse than death, or so he imagined. Even in Reikai, the souls of wrong-doers were never destroyed - locked up and confined, yes, but never completely and utterly annihilated. And then to be eaten... without meaning to, Ryo found himself trembling. Calming his nerves, he found himself standing outside his classroom door, one hand already on the large brass knob. Inside, his fourth-period students chatted away; some of them were discussing the newspaper article and ghoulish event of last night in hushed tones, but they were almost drowned out by the sheer amount of meaningless conversation. Who was dating who, the possibility of Mario beating Bruce Lee in hand-to-hand combat, what someone had named their pet traffic cone (A/N: I'm guilty of that one), and what was going to be on which teacher's final. All of it was perfectly frivolous, and quite stupid indeed, to be talking about when some poor creatures soul had been devoured not much more than twelve hours ago.
He wished he could be one of them, to just leave all of this to the "responsible adults", but remembered with a pang that HE was one of those "responsible adults" - and there was no way that the normal Ryo, one that wasn't trying to protect a bunch of children from the knowledge of a fate worse than death and was instead focusing all his energy towards editing the finals and preparing his students for their last test, wouldn't walk inside with anything less than a carefree smile on his face.
That's right... nothing's wrong. And if it is, it can wait until later...
Steadying himself and somehow forcing himself to smile, the elf turned the knob and stepped inside, cheerily calling out a "Good afternoon!" in an almost sing-song voice.
########################################################################
KKC: And the plot thickens.
Suzuka: o.o ? You... agh! How could you even bring that up! I-It's despicable!
Grim: Now you've done it...
KKC: What?
Suzuka: Do you have any idea how serious that is?! Huh? ::suddenly seems to grow ten feet tall:: HUH?!? DO YOU?!
KKC: ::cowers:: please don't kill me...
Suzuka: No, I won't kill you! I'll just rip out your very fiber and being, smother it, then stuff it down my goddamn throat so I can absorb it! And that's just the beginning, mind you!
Grim: -.-;; I thought she knew never to bring that up around demons... it's a touchy subject.
KKC: ::cowering under figurative table, and taking the verbal abuse rather well:: Gomen! Gomen! I'm sorry, really!
Suzuka: ::Ready to blow up at anyone who walks by:: You, of all people!
Grim: Uh... review, if you wish. ::mutters to self:: this ought to be interesting to watch...