A.N.: Really short chapter, sorry, but even so, I updated!
OK, I didn't just write that stupid comment... ¬¬'
Oh well, just a quick chat and introductions on this one, but I think every chapter is important, so even if it's small, it's still a chapter.
[Go to Hell!]: No, duh! What are you, stupid?
Kai: Now you've found out?
Kouichi: Wa! [Go to Hell!]-san, when did you get here?!
Syaoran: She comes and goes as she pleases; get used to it, Kouichi.
Loki: What a weird group! --'
Kai: Hey, I'm only here because she brought me, that doesn't mean I'm in the group!
Syaoran: Besides, you're not different. Hey, you're a chibi-sized who- knows-how-many-centuries-old God, for heaven's sake!
Loki --'
Uhm... let's get to the chapter that is a chapter...
Kai/Loki/Syaoran/Kouichi --'
[Go to Hell!]: BAAAAAAAAKA! :-0
THROUGH ETERNITY
CHAPTER 2 – KAI
Gray... that's the color the streets have if you live day-by-day in it. The misery is unspeakable, but real. People sleeping on the public benches, newspapers were their only blanket to face the cold night, for the ones who were lucky to even have that.
And among the sleeping humans, a little boy with blue eyes laid there, trying to sleep, but the cold wind of the night was surely preventing him to it. His hair would have been a wild red, were it not for the fact that it was so dry, dirty and uncared for, that others easily mistaked it for dark brown.
The shivering boy had given up sleeping that night, as he had done many times before. Passersby looked at him in disgust, clearly wishing the boy wasn't there so they wouldn't have to witness such a terrible scene. The little redhead, however, was more than used to that kind of treatment, having received it way back before he could remember. It was always the same, whether he was walking around trying to find anything to eat during the day, usually finding one or two things each week in a trash can, whether he was just trying to sleep or do any other thing... people always looked at him that way.
The boy was skinny, frighteningly so; his skin so pale due to the harsh cold and almost no protection, except his short ragged clothes; blue eyes that could have been beautiful, were the boy not submitted to inhumane conditions. He had never attended school, hardly even recognizing what it was. In all his 8 years of life, no one was there to help him... he had been alone ever since he could remember... no mother, no father, no siblings... simply no one.
Suddenly, on a particularly cold night, a wealthy-looking old man stopped before him. Surprised at this, since no one had ever bothered to spare him more than 5 seconds, the scrawny child raised his head up to give the stranger a better look and nearly gasped: the man's eyes, for the first time since the boy could remember... they held no disgust or scorn. For once, someone was pitying him.
The little redhead stared at the stranger for a few moments, as the man did him... eventually, to the boy's surprise, the man opened up in a caring smile and extended his hand. "Little boy, would you like to come with me?" He asked.
The dirty kid, not having ever been given the smallest kind of attention, had no second thoughts about it: quickly taking the offered hand, he got up hastily and followed the man to wherever it was he was leading them, never letting the boy go.
After walking for quite some time, getting a train (which was also a first for the "street urchin") and walking a bit more, they finally reached a very big mansion in the far countryside. At the time it was winter, so the place was covered up with pure white snow, but in summer the small redhead would find out that it could get pretty green and warm outside.
As they walked inside the big house, the child gasped at this greatness and its beauty, for it was perfectly decorated, nothing out of place. After the boy had had a few moments to look around, the old man lowered himself eyelevel with the small being before him, both looking into each other's eyes. "What is your name, child?" He asked softly.
"I don't know if I ever had one." The redhead explained timidly, using the bad pronunciation he knew he had, but having never had someone to correct him, the boy himself was surprised he even knew how to speak.
"Then how about I give you one?" The old man asked gently, to which the boy only nodded, but his eyes were shining at the attention he was receiving.
"How about... Tala? I will put you under my care, your name will be Tala Hiwatari [A.N.: To me, at least, the combination sounds cool!]. You'll live here and I'll see to it that someone will come and teach you," the man said, "it will be as if I'm your father and you are my son. How's that sound, Tala?"
The boy replied to the old man's broad smile with tears of joy. Only after his tears partially dried out did the child shyly ask the question plaguing his little mind.
"But... why?"
Closing his eyes as if remembering something, the reply was "Because I have too much for one person alone, and since I have never met anyone who I'd want to be with, my decision was to adopt kids on the streets and give them a home. Tala, you are the first, but every year I will bring in another child, sometimes older and sometimes younger than you, and we will all be a family."
After a few moments of silence, the boy nodded a bit clumsily, "Thank you, mister."
Smiling, the man corrected him. "My name is Voltaire, Voltaire Hiwatari, but you can call me 'father', Tala."
"Voltaire..."
But the boy had never called him that way. By the time Spencer and Bryan had become part of the family, Tala was finally able to speak Russian properly, so he had decided to learn English and when Ian arrived, the shortest of them all already knowning how to speak his own language, all of them had decided to take Japanese for some weird reason. Eventually, they were calling their "father" by Voltaire-sama, at which the old man was very surprised, but not taken back.
The boys had received proper education and were nourished back to health as time went by, for all of them had to the house with a sorry excuse for a human body. A few years later, when Voltaire decided 4 were enough sons, they had received proper training to become hunters, not because they were forced, but because they had by then noticed their father's liked strange creatures, so they'd decided getting these for him was the least the 4 could do to repay what they had received from him, at which Voltaire had been delighted to find out.
At some point during their hunting days, Tala, despite the close bond the "siblings" shared, had become a bit distant in terms of "work", but they had never gone separate ways. Tala would hunt by himself, the other 3 as a team: the Demolition Boys Hunting Pack.
And one day they found out that Voltaire had changed a little: the man was still as kind as ever to the boys, but when it came to getting the creatures, he seemed to snap easily, almost becoming someone else when his temper tantrums would show up.
But that had never seemed like a problem to them, for all four loved their "father" just the same. Everyone has his or her bad days, right? Voltaire's "new attitude" posed just as that to them: daily temper alterations.
But they never thought that one day the happy family would come face to face with such a terrible situation...
Darkness... that's all he "saw" as his mind exited his dream's landscape. Tala's mind seemed to be clouded in a dark fog; all he felt was something cool on his forehead, and something warm underneath him.
"Voltaire-sama..." He whispered, remembering the contents of his dream and the sad memories of his past that turning to happy ones because of that name.
As his eyes fluttered a bit, his mind drifting from consciousness to the opposite, he finally managed to wake up, although he couldn't quite make out his surroundings yet. The first thing the redhead could detect was a motionless human figure beside him and, as his vision slowly returned, a few bird-like shapes beyond him. Turning around, Tala was quite surprised to find the figure was the mysterious boy he had come across before.
What surprised him more, though, was the fact that the boy was not even a little bit burned, no marks on his clear skin, and that the bluenette was sleeping very peacefully beside Tala himself, even when they had just posed as threats to each other before the hunter passed out.
"What the hell..." Was Tala's thought, although he was also slightly concerned about how much time had passed since he blacked out, since Voltaire had his patience limits, and what were the mighty phoenixes doing at the entrance of what looked like a cave in which they were in. As obvious as it was that they were guarding them, specifically keeping an eye on Tala, the redhead couldn't help but gulp at the looks they were giving him. "Either I've done something I shouldn't have or they know what I'm here for... the question is... why am I still alive?" He asked himself silently.
However, before he could come any conclusions, the body beside him stirred a bit and almost immediately after crimson orbs once more were looking at him.
But they weren't the only ones. Tala found Dark green eyes also staring at him, watching him thoroughly... and they belonged to the same phoenix which had appeared when the boy made that screeching noise. Was it his pet or something? [1]
"What do you want?" The bluenette asked after a few instants.
"Pardon?"
"I asked you what do you want. I know you came here for Dranzer and the other phoenixes, but when her fire surrounded you, you did not try to save only yourself. As a matter of fact, you tried to save me too, even though it was unnecessary. That is something I have never seen, a hunter who does not kill." [2]
At the last comment, Tala grumbled. "I'm a hunter, not a murderer. I don't do the psychotic lunatic stuff." He replied, feeling very insulted.
Although he was expecting a witty remark from the naked boy beside him, the latter only smirked... and eventually the smirk turned into a smile, a genuine smile.
"You are different, that's for sure."
"No more than you. What the hell are you? You don't get burned, you have a pet phoenix, you live in this hot hell and, heck, you don't even use clothes!"
"What I am I might tell you someday, but not today. For now, I suggest you rest and heal yourself. The phoenixes are not very happy with your presence; so the sooner you recover and get out, the safer you'll be," the boy replied as he walked to the entrance. "For now, they won't harm you, as I have asked so; but they won't be able to hold themselves much longer, even if it's for me... phoenix instincts."
"What do you mean, 'even if it's for you'?"
"You might find out, just go back to sleep and recover," the bluenette answered and, before exiting the cave as he passed by the phoenixes guarding the entrance, who all made room for him to go through, the boy turned one more time for a final message.
"Oh, yeah. Dranzer is not my pet, she's my guardian and my best friend. I ask you not to speak so lowly of her and not to disrespect her, also because she will be the one watching over you. One wrong move, and you'll be ripped to shreds."
And with those words, the bluenette walked out of the cave.
"Wait! My name's Tala! What's yours?!" The redhead called out, even though he could no longer see the other boy. The answer was a strong yet somewhat distant voice.
"Name? Oh, the phoenixes call me Kai, if that's what you want to know."
"Kai, huh?" Tala repeated the name to himself. "It's a pretty name, and it kind of brings the thought of fire to my mind. I guess... it's a perfect match..."
With those thoughts, Tala drifted off to sleep once again.
END of CHAPTER 2 – Kai
[1] I don't know if that's Dranzer's real eye color, I just put it there because I like green eyes.
[2] Two things: one, I'm the one saying Dranzer's a female; I'm not certain that's true in the anime or in the manga; and two, Kai is referring to the fact that hunters usually kill their prey and bring in the skins or something, and they NEVER let themselves be stopped by anything, even if that means killing an innocent.
A.N.: I know it's obvious to anyone reading by now, but if you were in Tala's shoes (besides hugging Kai to death and never letting go ), I don't think it would be that obvious, so I'm still keeping the suspense-like environment. Things are a lot different when you're outside a situation, just watching, or, in this case, reading it. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, then I guess it's not THAT obvious...
Type ya' next!
Syaoran-Lover KaiLi