DARK DAY FOR ANIME - THE RIGHT DISHONOURABLE MARK A PAGE

Disclaimer: Blah and blah don't belong to me etc...

----o

Ketsu walked across the field of grass, staring across the landscape, feeling hollow and empty. She was sure she had heard Rakka's voice, but there was no sign of the girl, nor could she tell from which direction the voice had come. So she continued walking, searching for someone, anyone, to appear.

But she knew she was alone, wherever it was she was now. The sky and the grass filled her with uncontrolled waves of blue and green, so bright that all sense of hue was gone and all she could see was monochrome. She placed a hand over her eyes and continued on. There didn't seem to be anything else that she could do.

It was because she wasn't looking that she stumbled across the path of rounded gravel, feeling the crunch of the stones beneath her feet before stopping and looking down. She looked up and down along the length of the thin, white ribbon as it made its way through the landscape, one way up a small hill before disappearing, the other into a stand of trees through which she could see one or two man-made structures. After considering how she couldn't remember seeing the path before she'd shielded her eyes, she decided to follow it into the trees, as that seemed to offer more.... something. Anything. She didn't know what she expected to find. There certainly didn't seem to be any more people there than she'd seen, or felt, beforehand.

She entered the stand and realised that it went in far deeper than she had expected. The path wound its way through the trees and disappeared. The trees were somewhat evenly spaced, as if they had been planted and tended to, though they were fairly random species. She couldn't remember the names for them, no matter how hard she tried. She was sure that she had known what many of them were called. There were large ones with smooth, light trunks and dark, pointy leaves, and smaller ones with long, drooping branches and lighter leaves. There were stubby, bushy plants and tall, straight trees with fairly severe, dark green bristles. And she knew that she had known what they had all been called once. The knowledge was being denied to her, and she didn't like that very much.

Continuing into what now seemed to be a small forest, the path turned as it approached a monument. Well, that was what it seemed like to her. Stones arranged like a cairn, cemented together with a large metal plaque near the top. She moved closer to see what was on the plaque, but it was empty. A monument unfinished, incomplete, its intention forgotten. It was a monument to nothing, on a path that seemed to lead nowhere, in a world where there seemed to be no-one. Ketsu touched the plaque, as if she felt she would gain something from doing so. All she felt was its cold metal surface. She turned and continued on along the path.

Another turn and a small house appeared from behind the trees. Red brick with a high, sloping roof of orange-red ceramic tiles, covered in moss, plain wooden front door and small, functional windows with frames flaking white paint, she made her way up to one of the windows and tried to peer in. A net curtain made things difficult, but the room beyond seemed to be empty. Walking up to the door, she tried the handle. The door opened, though somewhat reluctantly, as if the hinges hadn't been used in some time. She peered into the front hall of the house, but it, too, was empty. No decorations, no furnishings. Nothing. An empty shell, waiting for an occupant, waiting for someone to make something of it. But there was nobody here, except herself.

She wondered if she should settle into the house. It didn't seem too bad an idea. But she shook her head and shut the door, turning from it and walking away, not looking back. The house had a history, but that history was gone, now.

----o

An Haibane Renmei Fanfiction

Red Feathers in Old Home

by Dark Day For Anime

Part 6

Visions - Paradise - Lost

----o

"What happens to them?" Kana asked softly as she unlocked the front door to the clock repairs shop. Maria, who was sitting on a perch behind the counter, looked up from some of the paperwork her uncle had asked her to retrieve, blankly.

"What?"

"What happens to people. From Glie, I mean, when they die?" Kana turned, and without looking at Maria, made her way back to the small office behind the desk. Maria watched her as she grabbed a broom from the office and started to sweep the floor of the shop's customer area.

"I dunno. I guess they go where everyone else goes. Where the Haibane go. Maybe. I've never thought about it before. In Glie, you're born, you live and you die. What happens next is the great unknown and unknowable." She shrugged and folded the paperwork into a neat bundle, placing them into a leather satchel, which she then zipped up and placed under her right arm. "Does it worry you? I didn't know Haibane thought about such things."

Kana stopped sweeping and leaned against the broom handle, thinking for a few moments. Then she shrugged and started again. "I've had friends leave Old Home. People I got to know well. Most of you seem to forget them when they're gone, because Haibane and townsfolk don't really get to know each other that well. It's the rules, for the most part. But Haibane.... I'm not sure. They don't die, as such, but you never see them again. It feels like they've died...."

"Does it worry you? That one day you're going to follow them, and you don't know when?"

"I don't think that really matters. I mean, none of us know when it will be our turn to leave." Kana opened the front door and started brushing what little dust she'd collected into the square. "I don't know if I'd really ever managed to get close enough to any of them to think about them for long. I don't like thinking about the past, anyway. It only makes you realise how much you've lost, and that isn't my style at all." And with a flourish she banished the dust into the world and closed the door to it, trotting back to the office to quickly store away the broom. "So...." She said as she shut the office door. "What are the arrangements?"

"Hmm?"

"You know...." Kana felt a little awkward about asking this. "For the funeral."

"Oohh...." Maria nodded. "It.... will be in a couple of days. Depending on the family, of course. This has thrown them right off.... Naturally enough. The grandson, Kei, is making the arrangements."

"Hmmm...." Kana brushed down her work apron with her hands. "I wonder if they'll let us attend. I'm not sure on the rules of this, whether Haibane are allowed to attend funerals or not."

"I'm sure you're allowed. The family would be happy for you to...."

----o

Occasionally she would feel as if she were being watched, but there would be nothing there when she would turn. It felt like having people call out to her, then run and hide before she could respond. It leant a slightly eerie air to the shady glades, the bright sun only just peering through the treetops. Ketsu continued along the path, trying to ignore the distractions. More houses and buildings of other descriptions. More monuments, even fountains and wells, all following the path, all seemingly clean and tended, but otherwise abandoned and unused, with no sign of ever having been used. Their purpose simply seemed to be to exist, without reason.

A bit like myself, Ketsu thought. A bit like everyone.

She approached a turn in the path, now heavily lined with the tall, rigid, dark-green trees and the lighter ones with long weeping branches, and came upon a small hall, much like all the other buildings she'd passed, only much neater, much cleaner, as if it had only just been built, but out of old, second-hand materials. The path went past nearby the front entrance, but something tempted her to stop. Near the double front doors was a fountain, barely trickling water, like the pressure had been turned down. At the stop of the fountain was a crudely carved figure, that of someone with stubby wings and a rough halo. From this figure's outstretched palms, the water trickled down into the plain, round base pool. The water below was clear, fresh. She approached it, and could smell the freshness of the water, tinged with a slight metallic tang. She wasn't sure what the smell was. She looked back up at the figure, and saw that the water emanated from the wrists into the hands before falling into the pond. Like blood from cut wrists. She shivered and looked down into the pool....

She had no reflection.

She recoiled, then looked down at her feet, which, in her perception, were still there, but how could she be sure that she even existed? Maybe everyone in this world was invisible, which was why she couldn't find anyone. She patted herself down, to make sure. The tactile sensations registered, but were they real? Was she real? She slowly stepped back up to the pool and looked in. She now had a reflection, as if confirming her existence also confirmed it.

Her face was partly round, partly thin. Her skin was pale and she had deep, dark eyes that were close to black.... Trying to define the division between the pupil and the iris was difficult. The thick, dark lashes around her eyes, however, did strike a sharp border and gave her an intense expression that she found somewhat discomforting. She brushed a hand along her long, dark hair, as if recognising it for the first time. Her body seemed thin and small underneath her clothes. How young was she? How old was she? She didn't seem to know. All in all, she didn't think she liked the way she looked very much. Then she noticed them. Protruding just over her shoulders, the tips of two small, grey wings. And just above her head, a dimly glowing halo.

She reached up and felt the halo. It was smooth and warm, and seemed to be spinning gently on its own axis. Trying to stop it caused the hair on the top of her head to stick up with static, so she let it go and peered over her shoulder at her wings. She flexed her shoulder muscles and felt another set of muscles working. The wings flapped, shaking off a couple of loose feathers. She tried it again, feeling for the new muscles, and found she could flap the wings at will.

Unfortunately, they were bloody useless. She doubted they were big, or strong, enough to lift her from the ground. Unless, of course, her bones had become honeycomb and lightweight. And even then, she doubted they would work. She wondered what the point of them was.... Both the wings and the halo. There had to be a point to them, some useful function.... She looked up at the figure, with the strange, blood-scented water trickling from its wrists. Was that her? A crude, ceramic version of herself? She stared at the figure, but it was hard to see, apart from the wings and halo, whether there was anything else that represented her.

'So, I have wings and a halo.' She thought to herself. 'What does that make me? What the hell am I, even less, where the hell am I?' She turned to the hall's double front doors. Large, wooden and plain, they weren't particularly inviting, but she stepped up to them and placed her hands on the latch anyway. It clicked open without effort, but the doors were, like the previous house door she had tried, quite stiff on their hinges. A rush of warm air struck her as the inside bled into the outside air. For a moment, she felt as if her inner self had been laid bare. She shook off the feeling as the doors opened wide, revealing the interior of the hall.

There were two small side rooms, little more than closet-sized, bordering the entranceway. Further in, the hall opened up into a huge, empty space, much like a church without its pews and altar. All along both sides of the hall, large leadlight windows cast a multicoloured glow onto the plain wooden floor. And at the far end, she could see what appeared to be a figure, cowled in a hood and cloak, kneeling before the far wall as if in prayer.

She stepped into the hall, through the entranceway, and looked from side to side at the leadlighting. Like almost everything else, there were no defined patterns in the coloured glass, merely a bright chiaroscuro representing nothing. Slowly, she made her way into the hall, her shoes creaking the floorboards, as she approached the figure, who made no sign of registering her presence.

The feeling she had had earlier, of not being able to sense anyone around her, remained. It was as if this person did not exist, was not real. Yet they seemed all too real as she stood behind them, waiting and watching for.... she didn't know what. She only just resisted the temptation to tap them on the shoulder....

----o

Kumiko entered the courtyard of Old Home for the second time in two days, looking slightly less than her usual, professional self. This visit wasn't for business, and she took a long breath as she exited the archway.

At the other end of the courtyard, the twins and Hana were loading a couple of the crates onto a trolley they had found somewhere. Putting on a grim smile, she approached them and was within a good twelve feet before they saw her. Both twins looked at each other and quickly wheeled the crates away before she had a chance to say anything. Hana bowed to her in apology and followed in their steps, leaving Kumiko shaking her head in bemusement.

"There are times when they should call this place the 'Mad House'...." She turned and looked up at the balcony. The doors were partly open and she could hear voices. Steeling herself once more, she made her way into the building.

----o

"Excuse me...." Ketsu began after clearing her throat. The figure's head twitched, causing a soft, jangling sound, but they didn't turn. "I just want to ask you a couple of things." She knelt down beside the figure and could see that their mouth was covered by what looked like bandages. There seemed to be small bells hanging from threads, dangling either side of the figure's head, from underneath the hood. There also seemed to be small bells on the collars of the cloak's sleeves. Ketsu bit her lower lip and backed up, slowly. "Though you probably won't be able to tell me, even if you did know the answers."

She turned and was about to stand when the figure clasped a hand around her right wrist. She looked back and the figure was staring at her, though she couldn't see their eyes in the darkness underneath the hood. The size and strength of the hand made Ketsu think that they were possibly male, certainly someone bigger and stronger than she was. She panicked for a second and wrenched her hand from their grasp, falling back onto the floor before standing and putting some distance between them.

She gazed warily at the figure, who did not move for minutes in what seemed, to Ketsu, like a kind of silent standoff. She felt herself trapped within the hall, and a sense of panic, the urge to run, started to build up within her. Then he turned back and gestured to the wall. "What?" Ketsu could feel her feet take a couple more steps back and stared at the wall. "What is it?" Her voice sounded strangled with fear, which she tried to suppress. Nothing had happened. He wasn't trying to hurt her.... Wasn't going to lay a finger on her.....

The figure gestured to the wall once more, and blood shot from their wrist, coating the wall. Ketsu put a hand up to her face in shock. "Oh sh...." She swallowed as more and more blood sprayed from the figure: now his face, chest and abdomen were belching red across the wall. Eventually, the spray settled and he collapsed to the floor.

She stared at the blood, feeling acid rise in her throat, she turned to run. The way out was in darkness. The darkness that was chasing her, reaching out to hurt her. She looked around for a way out, but the darkness had that way covered. It surged forward, eagerly looking to engulf her, when it struck a patch of red light from the lead-lighting. The darkness writhed and shot back out through the doors, which slammed shut behind it.

Ketsu's legs collapsed underneath her and she sat hard onto the floor, giving her tailbone a whack. She breathed heavily as she rubbed her sore lower back and looked across to where the figure had been. Both he and his sprayed blood were gone. For some reason, it didn't surprise her.

She turned and stared across the floor of the hall. Wherever the lead-lighting cast a red glow lay an equally red feather.

----o

The door to the common room slammed shut as Hikari raced past Kumiko. "Oh, hi...." Hikari said, spinning round to face her. "Sorry. Rakka wants me to see if the house mother has some medicine, or something.... The new girl will probably need some later. Gotta go." And with a little wave, Hikari disappeared down the corridor.

Kumiko sighed and walked up to the common room door, knocking gently. "Haaaaiiii...." Came a reply, and she slowly opened it, peering in. Rakka was kneeling beside the bed with Ketsu lying on her front, breathing heavily.

"I've.... I've come at a bad time, haven't I?"

"Kind of." Rakka applied a wet cloth to Ketsu's forehead. "The fever is starting."

"Her wings...." Kumiko swallowed.

Memories of her little Haibane sister, crying helplessly on her bed at home, entered Kumiko's mind. She was so young at the time, and knew nothing about the Haibane. She'd stayed by Chigusa's side as the girl went through what appeared to her young eyes as the worst of tortures. And she watched, horrified, as those wings pierced her skin, exploding outwards, spraying blood and oils across the room, flexing horribly.... painfully.... And Chigusa's cry of agony as they did....

Kumiko was rooted to the spot, unable to tear her eyes away from Ketsu's back as Rakka loosened the ties that held the nightdress in place, peeling it back and exposing the welts where the wings were starting to push. "Kumiko-san?" Rakka's voice brought her round.

"What?"

"I'm sorry you came all this way to see this. It isn't very pleasant." Rakka stepped back to the table, where the medical box was sitting, and started to rifle through it, pulling out a roll of gauze.

"I've.... seen this happen before. Remember?"

Rakka turned to Kumiko, whose face had turned pale. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'll be fine." Kumiko looked around the room. "As soon as I sit down." And with that, she made her way to a chair and practically collapsed into it.

----o

Ketsu reached forward and picked up the nearest feather. The redness did not change out of the light. In fact, the feather seemed to glow even brighter without it. There was a warmth emanating from the feather and Ketsu held it to her. The hall was filled with the deep blood-red light, and then....

----o

In the storeroom, Hana and the twins had managed to ring the regenerating cocoon with stacks of crates at least two-high before they'd thought of taking a breather. All three were already exhausted and they'd barely started the job. The heat and humidity of the day was also rising, quite rapidly, and the room, despite being larger than most rooms in Old Home, was feeling dusty and stuffy.

"You know...." Hana slumped down against the wall after helping Yu heave up the last crate. "....When the others find out about this, they're going to be really, really angry." She crossed her arms and huffed.

"Of course they are." Sa grinned. "I wouldn't be doing this, otherwise."

"Yeah. She's a complete nutter who likes being beaten to an inch of her life." Yu glowered at her sister. "Anyway, who says they're going to find out?"

"Well...." Hana pointed at the cocoon. "It's glowing even more brightly, now. It might do something, like explode, or something like that." That sky-about-to-fall feeling was setting in for the day.

"Don't be stupid." Sa wiped sweat off her forehead and looked across the crates at the cocoon. "It isn't going to explode. I think."

And the cocoon exploded.

----o

The house mother tutted as she rifled through the medicine cabinet in the kitchen of her living space. "Honestly.... I've never known a Haibane to need medicine during this time, before." She looked over her shoulder at Hikari. "In the middle of class, too.... The kids are probably running amok, as usual." Hikari laughed with embarassment, pushing her glasses further up her nose.

The walls and floor vibrated for a second, and they both looked at each other. "What was...." Hikari managed to get out, before she heard a cry....

----o

Just at that moment, Ketsu let out a piercing cry, which shocked both Rakka and Kumiko. Trickles of blood started to run from small cuts in the welts on her back. Rakka knelt down beside Ketsu, wrapping the gauze around her right thumb as she glanced back at Kumiko. "A small trick taught to me by a friend. Helps to stop the newborn from biting their tongue, or something like that." Rakka turned back and help Ketsu's head up in her left hand. Ketsu's eyes were unfocused, but the pain seemed to be bringing her around.

"Rak...ka?" She panted. "What.... Ughhhh...." She spasmed as larger tears appeared in the welts. Rakka held her gauze-wrapped thumb into her face.

"Bite this. When it starts to hurt bad, bite really hard."

"But.... I'll hurt you." Ketsu's eyes turned to Rakka. They still seemed somewhat clouded-over. Rakka shook her head and did her best to smile, kindly.

Ketsu looked down at the thumb and leaned her head forward, opening her teeth. Then there was a ripping sound and she spasmed again, her teeth latching onto the thumb hard. Rakka fell back as Ketsu's jaw muscles worked repeatedly, drilling her teeth into the gauze again and again. Kumiko let out a short cry as small splashes of blood sprayed across the bedsheets....

"Chigusa...." She placed a hand over her mouth as two blood-covered.... things.... slowly squeezed their way out of Ketsu's back. Ketsu's entire body was quivering as they now obviously formed a wing-shape. The tips of the wings flicked away from the skin, and the wings spasmed outwards, pulling on muscles that had never been used, and ripping further into already-damaged skin. Just as the wings flexed, Hikari ran in in time to hear Ketsu cry out once more, before she passed out and the joints of the blood-splattered wings settled into their sockets, holding them in place. Already, the skin around the exit wound was starting to seal over with an unnatural speed.

The three of them looked at Ketsu in a shocked silence, before Hikari ran into the kitchen. Kumiko managed to stand from her chair and made her way across the room to Rakka, who was still holding her right hand up to Ketsu, the girl's teeth having let go of her thumb, but one of her hands had grabbed Rakka's wrist and her head was now nuzzled against it. Kumiko knelt down beside Rakka, whose face, expressionless in the aftermath, had been sprayed with some of the blood. Kumiko reached into the coat of her business suit and pulled out a handkerchief and started to wipe some of the blood away. Rakka didn't respond for quite some time.

"That...." Kumiko whispered to her. "....Still takes some getting used to, it seems."

Rakka turned her face to Kumiko and smiled. "I think I'm stuck. She's not letting go of my hand."

Kumiko reached up and gently prised Ketsu's fingers away from Rakka's right hand, unwrapping the gauze from her thumb. Ketsu had done her best to part Rakka with her thumb, but all she'd managed to achieve were a few layers of broken skin and some deep indentations. "Better clean that up." Kumiko helped Rakka to her feet. "Then we can clean her wings off."

----o

It wasn't much of a blast, more like a shedding of its outer shell. But it still blew Hana and the twins across the room. They stopped when they hit the wall, where they lay dazed for a few moments, before Hana crawled up to Yu and latched onto her, screwing her eyes shut. Even then, she could 'feel' what was happening. All three of them could. They could feel the presence that had emerged from the cocoon.

Sa and Yu watched as the powdered remains, which had clouded the room, cleared away to the corners. The cocoon was still glowing, but more faintly, now. In front of the cocoon was the floating figure of Ketsu. She was clothed, in a dark jacket, shirt and shorts and large, heavy-looking shoes, and she had a halo and the wings of a Haibane. Her hands were clenched around the end of what looked like a red feather.

"Ketsu?" Sa whispered, and the girl opened her eyes, regarding all three dispassionately.

"Ketsu." She repeated, as if learning the word for the first time. "So, that is who I am, this time. I am.... Ketsu." The figure straightened out and threw the feather in front of her. It exploded in a shower of sparks, making Hana and the twins cry out in surprise and turn away.

Only Sa was brave enough to open her eyes to see what happened next. Ketsu held out her arms and closed her eyes, smiling. Her hair changed colour, becoming blond, and her wings enlarged, turning a bright shade of red, much like the feather she had been holding. And her eyes.... turned a deep shade of crimson. "One feather, Ketsu." Now her size and features changed, to become someone completely different. To become the person who had been in the painting Rakka had found.

The cocoon glowed brightly once more, rendering the new figure little more than a silhouette, and the powder re-emerged to fill the room again, this time imploding. A great inrush of air from outside rushed past them before everything fell silent. The figure that had first appeared as Ketsu now gone. Sa got to her feet and crept back towards the cocoon, which had gone dormant. Hana and Yu had opened their eyes and were watching her. "Sa.... be careful...." Yu whispered, but Sa was ignoring her. She climbed over the crates and moved right up to the cocoon, daring to touch it.

BRRRRRRRRRAAAAARRRRRAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAARARRRRAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR.....

Sa snatched her hand away. The noise hadn't been so much a vibration as a sound in her mind, much like the cries had been.... She climbed back over the crates and bounded over to where her sister was helping Hana to her feet, feeling a great deal of excitement.

"Man, that was so COOL!" She jumped up and down and glomped the both of them. "Did you see that? That was just the coolest thing ever. I wish my cocoon had been like this one."

"Yes, Sa. Very good, Sa." Yu held Hana's shoulders as Sa let go of them. The younger girl was staring, transfixed, at the cocoon, her face an unreadable mask. Her lack of reaction worried Yu, somewhat. She turned back to Sa, starting to feel annoyed. "Would you like to remind us just why the hell we're doing this?"

"What do you mean?" Sa let them go, nonplussed.

"What do I mean? Honestly, Sa.... Do you think either me or Hana are going to go on with this after what just happened?"

"Well, be like that, then. I doubt you'll ever see anything else like it."

"And I doubt I'll want to see anything else like it." Yu shook her head. "Now, do you think it might be a good time to tell the others about this?"

Sa bit her lower lip. "Nothing has changed." Yu looked at her, disbelievingly, then shook her head.

"I'd like to see what would constitute things changing." Yu's flat tone belied her sarcasm.

"Look.... It doesn't change the fact that it involves Ketsu, somehow.... You saw that much...."

"Well, yeah...." Yu started, before Sa ran over to where the trolley was lying, picking it up. "It also doesn't change what we've both heard. If anyone found out about this, then Ketsu could be in really deep doo doo...."

"Or we could be. I doubt anyone in Old Home failed to hear that." Yu was about to deliver her sister a tirade before Hana let go of her and walked up to Sa, her face a dark mask of fury the likes of which Sa had never seen before. Sa had practically withered underneath the gaze when Hana slapped her hard across the face, much to both the twins surprise.

"Now I feel better." She smiled at Sa, who held a hand up to her stinging cheek. "Now, are we going to finish building this barricade, or not?"

"But...." Yu's mouth hung open. "After what happened, you...."

Hana turned to her, putting hands on hips. "Sa-oneechan is right. Who knows what they'll do to Ketsu-oneechan if they find out about this. I won't let them hurt her."

"Hana-chan...." Yu ventured, before realising there was an odd kind of zeal in Hana's eyes. A chord had been struck in her 'sense of justice' gland once more....

----o

Kumiko watched as Rakka brushed away the blood and grease on Ketsu's wings, and remembered the time when she had done the same for Chigusa. Rakka noticed her watching and smiled at her. "Penny for your thoughts."

"Hmm?" Kumiko blinked, brought out of her reverie. "Oh, just thoughts of the past."

Hikari stuck her head out of the kitchen. "You know, about now I'd offer you tea.... But the twins took off with the teapot and haven't brought it back. So you're going to have to deal with coffee. Granulated, no less."

Kumiko shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We'll probably need something fairly strong after this."

"Hmmm...." Hikari shrugged. "I'm so going to be toast at the bakery, so to speak. This is the second day I'm not going to show up for work in a row...." She paused for a moment. "By the way, did either of you feel.... well.... did things shake in here just as Ketsu's wings started to pop out? It felt like an earth tremor, when I was in the house mother's lodgings." Both Rakka and Kumiko looked blankly at her. "Oh well...." Hikari shrugged. "It was probably the twins blowing up the teapot, or something." And she ducked back into the kitchen.

A few moments passed as they listened to the kettle starting to boil in the kitchen, before Rakka spoke. "Kumiko.... Is there a reason you came to see us today? Are you still needing me for the festival, or something?"

Kumiko swallowed as she remembered. "Oh.... No. It isn't anything like that. It's just...." She looked uncomfortable. "I just wanted to bring you the news. It isn't very good news, though."

"What?" Rakka stopped brushing and stared at Kumiko, who felt put on the spot.

"Ummm...." She tried to think of the right way to say this. "Fujita.... The builder who was here yesterday. He...."

"What? He can't come round to do the repair work to Old Home, after all?" Hikari stepped out of the kitchen, holding two mugs. "That would be s shame.... After all the inspection work he did yesterday. What is it? An important job, or something?"

"No." Kumiko took a long breath. "He died last night, at his home. Apparently of a heart attack...."

There was a very long silence that followed.

END OF PART 6

----o

And thusly, from the little bits of the original second half of part 5 was born part 6.... I really wasn't all that happy with the way the original part 5 went. I was trying to get through too much too quickly, and only ended up putting together a rush job.... Which was why these chapters took so bloody long to finish.

As you can tell, I like meandering through stories. This chapter is one long meander. The original series was also one long meander, but that isn't, necessarily, a bad thing....

This chapter was also written, predominantly, through the hard-drive crisis of September 17, where my trusty old steam-powered pc decided to lunch itself during a bittorrent batch file download. (Kokoro Library, if you must know). I'll probably pack it in and get it from someone else. I'm just hoping that everything else on the three hard drives is still in basic working order. Though I'm not entirely hopeful....

Cheers

DARK DAY FOR ANIME - THE RIGHT DISHONOURABLE MARK A PAGE

FEATHER 2.0: 14th-18th September 2004