(Disclaimer: I do not own YST nor RW, they are owned by Sunrise. Neither do I own the characters of the original series.)
(Author's Notes: The SECOND CHAPTER is here! Yay! You know what I mean! Please still continue to R&R! Sorry if there are some mistakes, just tell me, okay? PLEASE NO FLAMING, just bear with me, kei... sorry...)
SAMURAI PHANTOM REKKA: HANA JUNIOR HIGH'S INVISIBLE THIEF
Episode Three: KOTARU
One evening in Ryo's house.
"A thief case, eh?" Byakkouen asked while playing his favorite computer game, "Moguru Tataki", that night. Very UNUSUAL for a domestic animal.
"Yap," Ryo just finished cleaning up the dishes and now wiping his hands dry, "And one of my classmates has been suspect'd in the crime..."
"One of your classmates?" he turned to him, still his paws are in the joystick (well, good luck!), "Who?"
"His name's Kotaru. Kotaru Nomura."
"N-Nomura?" almost surprised by hearing the name, he almost lose grip of the joystick. But when the poor cat turned his attention to the game on the TV screen, his face crumpled upon the sign: GAME OVER. My, he had been lost in the game three times since yesterday! "Oh, man..."
"He's my classmate since last year," Ryo doesn't seem to care at his pet's 'defeat', he sat comfortably on the couch, "My classmates suspect'd him for bein' a nerd and not too open for his feelin's..."
"Nomura..." analyzing his classmate's surname, he turned to him, "I knew his family very well. Don't say that you don't!"
"Man, you DO really have lots of stuff in yer brain!"
"Darn it, you REALLY don't know about his family background! How come that you became his classmate for quite a long time???"
"Well, how could I? Of course, I don't 'coz he's not the type of person who'll just boast 'bout his family!"
"Okay, I'll give you a little hint for it: The Nomuras are one of the richest families in Japan!"
Ryo stood up and his jaw dropped with surprise, "Whatta..."
Byakkouen, walking slowly, continued, "Unbelievable, but that's the truth. During Feudal Japan, the Nomuras were armor manufacturers. They also own a huge sugar and metal plantation and their best family members served as advisers to the Shogun or to the Emperor, himself. Currently they own a television company, a telephone company, a sugar and metal plantation and they own a big share of stocks to some of the most powerful companies in the country!"
Ryo almost cannot speak of what he actually heard about his classmate. Man, they're humongously RICH... and he bouced himself back to the couch. But then he remembered Kotaru, he couldn't help but to ask himself, but if they're THAT rich, why should he hafta steal? I mean, why does he need to? After all, I don't believe that he can actually do it...
The cat went on with the story, "Recently, Koruya Nomura, president and overall chairman of Nomura TV, along with his wife, died of a plane crash four years ago while on their way to Hong Kong for a business conference, leaving their only child in the care of his uncle..."
When Ryo heard of Kotaru's tragic past, So it seems that we're just the same... he thought sadly.
"Yes, it happened four years ago. The child's uncle begged the media not to report about it immediately or it will cause trauma to the child. It was only a year later when the whole country found out, which became an ultimate controversy regarding the inimmediate report of their deaths, but then everything ends well when his uncle explained everything that when Kotaru learned about it, his nervous breakdown returned that led to his year-long suffering and doesn't want to talk nor hear about it anymore. He is still in the middle of his trauma, up to now, that just might be the cause of his silence. And so they might knew it already but never talked about it..."
Why didn't I know that...? His face turned serious but disappointed.
"Ei, Ryo," the cat called him, "Have you tried to read your classmate's mind?"
Ryo went back to reality, "Ha? W-well... no, not yet... Why'd ya ask?"
"I see. Then why don't you try it?"
Surprised, "Why do I hafta? D'ya wanna see me killed by Kotaru? Though I have that STUPID ability, it's not my style to sneak in to other's secrets as my respect to their privacy! Y'know him so well than me so why won't ya do it instead?"
"And WHY?" he growled, "Does he know about your STUPID ability?"
He just swallowed up, "W-well... of course he doesn't! But..."
"Well, FYI: that will help YOU--and him--find the REAL culprit, so that he would not be suspected by anyone else, is that so hard for you?"
"And WHAT'S the connection to that, huh?"
But instead of being answered, Ryo saw his pet in his serious and thinking mode. As he suspected, Byakkouen was analyzing the case: the sudden loss of the students' and the teachers' belongings, Kotaru's extreme passiveness and uneasiness being suspected, the mysterious location of the stolen things, and the reason why only the school became the target of the culprit, "I suspected," and he concluded, "An ONI is behind this!"
"An oni AGAIN?" it seems that he doesn't want to believe, "How come?"
"Well, as you said... the culprit steals anything even within the tighest security, so I suspected that only an evil spirit like an oni can do that, not unless you don't believe in me..."
"What'ya tryin' to say, Kitty?" he huffed.
Once again Byakkouen didn't answer his question and continued talking, "Still I have to analyze what it its nature so it will take us a little long time to do so. But I'm afraid..."
"You're afraid of what?"
"...I'm afraid that the oni is within your classmate himself... that he's POSSESSED..."
"Now that's REDICULOUS!" Ryo stood up with a stern face on the cat, "Y'thought that Kotaru's possessed by an oni? GET REAL, MAN!" and about to walk out and went upstairs, "I can't believe you'll say that to someone y'never saw in yer entire life! And I thought that you'll help me help Kotaru! How could ya be like 'em?"
As he climbed upstairs with heavy feet, Byakkouen panicked a little. "H-hey, Ryo, wait!" He stood up trying to follow him, "Hey! It doesn't mean that it's true! And I didn't mean that he REALLY did it! It's just my hypothesis! Hey!"
But it seems that our little samurai hero is very upset with his pet...
----------
The same night. Nomura Manor.
Byakkouen is ACTUALLY right: Kotaru's family is absolutely wealthy. Just seeing their mansion as big as a duke's villa painted with marvelous white that strikes with the sheer dimness of moonlit night as if the house was painted with a glow-in-the-dark effect. The front garden is accentuated with a large but nice fountain adorned with bronze seraphims dancing around the marble urn that provides water that gives its glow and romance in it. Though already nighttime we can actually guess right that their garden is as spacious as the prince's enchanted one with tall trees that bloom and bear luscious fruits annually; flowers bloom in rainbow and pastel colors although some cannot be seen that clearly, but we could bet that it will be livelier in the early morning, most especially during spring and summer. The big cypress-colored gate is sure tight with greater security as seen in built-in video cameras and a speaker just in the front left of the gate to see who is coming. A black shiny limousine is fast approaching to the gate of the mansion. One of the men in black suits came near the driver's window to check his ID or any means of recognition of being a staff of the household. Seeing that it is clear, the gate slowly opened using their advanced technology and the car immediately entered in.
As they approached the garage, the driver came out first to open its door to his master: it was Kotaru, himself, just came from school since their house is almost two kilometers away--almost as far as the road Ryo walked on from school and vice versa!
He just went to a shortcut from the back of the garage going to his room, which is according to him, the shortest way to go there, since he knew that at this moment his uncle haven't arrived yet. Upon entering there,although it is just a shortcut, we could seethe glamour and spectacle of the interior of the house: very big and fine chandeliers hanging on the smooth pastel white ceiling, windows draped with heavy velvet silk, furnitures as antique and as unique as time, dating back from their ancestors and some are from other countries, thus a clash of rich Eastern and Western culture. Floors and staircases daintly furnished and padded with red carpet to lessen the noise, paintings and beautiful artworks that no one could help but to dazzle. Yes, it might be a dream house everybody in all walks of life wants, full of servants to attend their master's every wish, but in fact a haunted house, only lightened, since no one in the household is allowed to speak nor chat in the middle of their job, since Kotaru grew up a paranoid that they might accidentally or intentionally talk about his parents' sudden death four years ago and the controversy behind hiding the news in secret.
He finally went inside his room almost two times larger than of the living room in Ryo's house, putting his bag on a king-sized skyblue-covered waterbed and started to fix his things inside it, wearing the same face he had from school.
But as he opened his bag, his black eyes went big as he saw what is inside that made him shocked. "H-h-ho-how... how did this happened...?" then he started to get the things one by one: his classmate's cherished blue ballpen. A set of PE uniform. A badminton set. An autographed basketball. A novel. A baseball bat. A pink box containing sewing materials. A blue-hued guitar. A dictionary. A purple purse still with money on it. And the thing that made him even in more shock...
"What... what the hell is Mr. Kuboka's class record doing here???"
With unexplained shocked face, he absently dropped the class record and just dropped himself sitting on the floor. He then remembered the stares and the whispers from his classmates about him. Does it mean that their suspictions were actually TRUE???
But what makes him confused most is his bag. Still in perfect condition and it was not supposed to be convertable into a large one, as Ryo just stated a while ago, he wondered how in the world all those bulky things DID fit into his ordinary schoolbag that can only hold two to three books and notebooks.
He cannot get up due to shock. It seems that his nervous breakdown might come back as he feared, seeing his bag in both amazement and daze. His bag seems to be normal if he looks at it, yet it can UNBELIEVABLY hold as many and as bulky as he pulled out in his bag tonight, aside from his own things and lunchbox.
But I swear I didn't do ANYTHING!... his heart protested, I know that someone's behind this, but I don't know who... But I'm sure that one of them... Yeah, one of them might did this... I really don't remember that I have stolen anything from them... But WHO in the world will do this to me???
Seconds later, "Kotaru...!" a soothing yet full voice of an old man boomed outside, "Kotaru, are you already here?"
Hearing the voice, he went more stunned. It was actually his uncle calling him to be sure if he is already around. Especially when he will learn about his demeanor in school that might makehis uncle furious that even the media might spread out the rumor that he is a school thief, which was not true, that lead him from his mental disorder.
But if I tell this to him right away... his mind continued to lament, No... he would surely not believe me, especially this... Staring at his bag,What shall I do....?
Wierd, but an idea just came across his mind. Looking for the possible places to hide the stolen things, he picked them all and he just put it in his drawer just underneath his waterbed with shaking hand and unsure face, still dumb at his uncle's continuous call.
The whole room and the whole mansion went dead after that.
----------
(Thanks to darkangel1507 for revieving my story! Lemme see... Yes, you're right, this chapter tells about tho the thief is and what's with the thief, as the title says, and the target is the school itself. If you're looking for the action here, or should I say the climax, I'm suggesting you to read this more and wait for the next episodes to come, I'm so sorry if it takes too long to finish an episode due to some commitment that I still have to attend. Anyway, I'm begging ya to please BEAR WITH ME... he-he... You also say that you also have a little hard time to understand the dialogues here. Well, as Firestorm asked, yeah, most of the students in Hana Junior High, if not some, are using Southern Accent as what the Americans say. But in Ryo's case, he uses minimal accent to mirror out his character. Some of the characters also, including Byakkouen, doesn't actually use so much slang as that, if not very seldom, only for exclamation purposes. The reason for putting this slang, which in literary term it is called LOCAL COLOR, is to emphasize every character in this story, though you noticed that most of my characters are in the slang. Well, although they're in Japan, it's the Eighties, that's why, and also it opens out the youthfulness of a character, that's all. And about the archer and when the rest of the Phantoms will appear? Don't worry, there are more chapters of this you have to wait still, and I'm so sorry again if it takes it very long. But don't worry, I've written this already, four chapters so it will be easy for me to type these here. You'll just wait for the next two chapters, kei? I'm REALLY sorry... But anyway, thanks for reviewing!)
(To Firestorm: sorry, man, if some of your questions are still unanswered. I didn't noticed that you also asked why most of them are using slang or Southern Accent. The answer is already posted when I answered darkangel1507's question. You're also wondering why Ryo is still not yet victimized by the mysterious thief? Don't worry man, we'll go to that if you'll keep on reading. Anyway, thanks to you, two, for reviewing! And for others yet unable to do it, please do and everything will be appreciated as always! Once again, SALAMAT PO! (bows))