Once a True Love of Mine

By Misoka Mine

Disclaimer: I do not own DNAngel in any form or fashion.

Rating: T

Warning: yuri, shojo-ai,

Queen of Swords: A person who quietly suffers, a reserved person

Wow, it's been forever since I've updated. ((hides)) I'm sorry- I actually finished this chapter a while back, but something wasn't quite right about it. I had to edit out some parts. But, mostly everything else looks good. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to update soon.

Also, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed! ((hands them all Emiko plushies))

Kute Anime Kitty- Thank you very much! I'm working on Caught, but I've encountered a writer's block, but I'm outlining an idea I think might work.

Azalee- For the longest, I thought that Rio was a man. But, then I read something from volume nine, and I went, "Oh, she's a woman!" Then all sorts of little plot bunnies came to my head. LOL

Deezy- I'm glad you liked my fic, Deezy-chan. You've got to get an FFnet account- I think you'd like it.

Les Scribbles- Yay! Your reviews always help me out with my stories. I'm glad you liked some of my characterizations. And don't worry, I can understand why you're not sure what to say about Grandpa Daiki, since he's so very much out of character. I wasn't originally planning on him acting like this either, he just…did. It was weird.

Okay, onto the fic!

"Prejudice is the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart."

-Marguerite, Countess of Blessington

"Human life, its growth, its hope, fears, loves, et cetera, are all results of accidents."

-Bertrand Russell

Chapter 2: Queen of Swords

Time: Past

Narrator: Emiko Niwa, age 13

I paid my fee, and walked into the main lobby. It was blissfully cool in here compared to outside, which was like a perpetual oven. I decided that since it was my first day of ever having freedom, I could take a few setbacks.

I'd just remember to not ride my bike all over town in one hundred degree weather, and instead take the chauffeured car.

The mild sprinkling sounds of chatter echoed around me, and I always felt a little irritated at the sound of it. To me, art always needed to be looked upon with reverence- it was expressions of people's very souls.

Emiko, I asked myself, now fully realizing where I was, what are you doing here? Didn't you swear over your favorite Hikari artwork that once Dad let you have some freedom, you'd go somewhere besides art museums?

It had taken months of begging for Dad to let me go around the city without him or a bodyguard. Really, I had thought he wasn't going to relent, until I made a remark at how I was going to be fourteen the next month and I wasn't even allowed a little freedom. "When you were fourteen, you were moonlighting as a thief after school.All I'm asking is being allowed going out by myself during the day. I'm not proposing to do anything crazy, like break into the museum and trying to steal something despite me not being trained."

He had heard the unsaid threat in that, and while it kind of irked me that he'd actually think I'd do something as dangerous as breaking into a museum, it got the result I was looking for.

I sighed, and just chalked it up on my list of setbacks before turning down the hall towards the back of the museum. While I had hoped that I would do something different with my freedom, I could afford to spend one more day in a museum, since this was an extraordinary event: the first new Hikari work to be put in a museum in over fifty years.

Dad had seen it long before, but since newer Hikari works tend to have less restraints on their spirits then the older ones, he had not taken me to see it. Of course, nothing could have happened to me, unless by some miracle I started working magic in the middle of the exhibit. Then, after that miracle, I would have to do a spell that would become a catalyst to awaken the artwork, which involves several different types of magic circles and wands, and several of the incantations in one of the old languages that they recited spells in (why can't we have any spells in good old Japanese?).

Despite all of the precautions, how can my nannies tell me he isn't a paranoid?

I sighed lightly, and took out a hair band out of my purse. As I walked toward one of the back halls of the museum, I put my hair up in a loose ponytail.

Being the idiot I was by putting my hair up in the museum instead of at home, in front of a mirror, I didn't get all of my hair in. Then, when I took my hair out to readjust it, my hairband got tangled in a knot. Silently screaming in frustration, I concentrated more on my hair then where I was going.

But, then again, I had beentouring these museums since I was crawling. I didn't really think about watching where I was going. I only forgot about one big problem, which I didn't figure out till later.

I turned the corner, and I instantly knew where the artwork, the Weeping Heart, was. Anyone with a drop of Niwa blood can tell where a Hikari artwork is even before they see it. I looked up towards the painting, and I almost dropped the hair band in my mouth, because my jaw about fell open.

It was probably about six feet high and three and a half feet wide. A very weird size, but that was one of the things noted about the Hikaris. And, unlike its title suggested, it was a portrait.

It was a side profile of what could have been, if it had been a normal portrait, of a beautiful young girl with long, curly sand blonde hair and deep blue eyes, and looked about twenty years old. But, she appeared older in her picture, because it was so emotional.

She was slumped over her knees, her hair falling like a curtain in front of her face, and she was griping her hair with an grip so strong it was causing blood to drip from her palms. You could see the side of her face, and tears were leaving salty, burning trails along her face. The main colors of the painting were dark green (her dress, and her furniture) and the two neutral colors (her hair and skin), but they night as well have been black. The strokes were so violent that you could barely tell any of the details outside the face area. The Hikaris were true masters- everything else but the face was harsh and sparsely detailed, but the face was intricately detailed yet still managed to not look conspicuous with the rest of the painting.

But, I didn't have long to look at the painting, because I ran straight into someone.

I fell on my back, right onto my hand that was still fooling with my hair. With a few well-chosen curses, I sat up and shook my hands in hopes of stopping the pain.

"Are you all right?" I was asked, by an obviously feminine voice, along with a hand extended towards me to help me up.

What an odd accent- is she southern (1)? I accepted the help and I stood up, my apologies on my lips, but I stopped in shock.

She looked about my age, but her aura told a different story. She had a certain type of presence- I couldn't describe it any other way. It was just that sort of that detached, professional feeling the CEOs try to recreate with their suits and nice haircuts. But, she was the real thing, the kind of person that exuded authority despite being a head shorter then me and wearing a pair of black pants and a white short-sleeved top.

She was wearing a small, polite smile that didn't quite meet her eyes- a deep aqua that was like a lava lamp, always swirling and changing. Her hair fell down her shoulders in flyaway sort of waves, and it was odd blue shade I had never seen on a person. If I hadn't just made a complete idiot of myself, I might have risked asking her if it was natural.

There was something I had been told about blue hair, but I couldn't remember. Probably because Father had been the one to tell me- I always forgot everything he said.

"Um," I said, my embarrassment getting the worst of me, as I was forced to look her in the eyes to apologize. "I'm very sorry. I didn't even realize that anyone was there. I guess I just got kind of lost in the painting." I wanted to slap myself for rambling on so. (2)

"That's easy to do, especially with paintings done by them," she said, looking up at it. There was something about the way she looked at it, despite the fact that her expression was carefully neutral, that made me wonder if perhaps she knew the person whose portrait had been painted.

I looked down at the artist's name. It had been painted by Hikari Midori, a name I didn't know or couldn't remember, as much as I racked my brain for it.

"I wonder how the artists managed to actually get someone to pose like that?" I said, looking at her. She looked back, obviously surprised that I was talking to her. What am I doing?

Her eyes turned a dark color, and that small smile appeared again. "That's a self-portrait she did from memory. Her only work, her masterpiece- only the Hikaris would be so distraught over the news of being pregnant." At that last part, I had the feeling that she wasn't talking to me, but more to herself.

After an awkward pause, I felt obligated to break the silence, since it had been my fault anyway for it being awkward. "Have you ever been here before?"

She shook her head. "No, this museum is somewhat far away from my home, so I never came across it. One of my relatives mentioned this artwork was going on display here, and mentioned that severalsimilar artworks are here, so I came by to see."

"Oh!" I said, smiling. "I've been coming here since I was little, so I know the artworks and hallways of this place very well. Do you want to look around with me?"

She looked taken aback, but not in an offended sort of way, much to my relief. "There would be no use for you to go through all that trouble…"

"Trouble? Not really- and maybe it would make up for me running into you." I said. "Unless, of course, you're not all that interested in art." Suddenly I felt self-conscious, and I realized that I had fallen back into my bad habit of scratching the back of my neck nervously.

She gave me a small smile, but this one met her eyes much more then her others. "There seems to be no way to persuade you otherwise."

I laughed, and motioned for her to follow me, and we both walked around the halls. I walked around and showed her all of the art pieces I knew about- mostly Hikaris, but also a few other pieces that I had found out about simply because I liked them so much.

She knew a lot about the Hikari works, telling me some things even I didn't know. This surprised me- I thought my family had been the leading authority on all things Hikari-related. But, I dismissed it by just thinking she was probably just a big fan. After all, they are a well-known family.

All the time we looked around, I asked myself why I had offered to take her around. Was it that I was just surprised that there was a girl my own age was interested in art as well, and I had just gotten a little excited? But, somehow, when I debated this theory, it just didn't seem quite right somehow. Nothing else came to mind, though, so I decided to leave it in my mind as an unfinished argument.

We had gotten through several different exhibits when she looked down at her watch. "I'm going to have to leave. I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago for my violin lesson. It's hard to believe we've been here two and a half hours," she said.

"It doesn't seem like it's been that long at all," I said truthfully. "It's a shame you have to go." It really was- despite her cool demeanor, I thought she was a really nice person. I wasn't a shy person, but I had always been…different. It wasn't often that I made friends.

"Yes," she said. She looked through the window, and obviously saw her ride. "Good-bye, and thank you." She bowed, and started walking away.

I watched her walk away, and before I had even realized it, I had called out for her to wait. She turned around, her hand resting on the doorframe.

"I never gave you an introduction- I'm Emiko, Niwa Emiko."

She took her had off the doorframe, her eyes growing wide in surprise. "Niwa?" Then that bitter smile came back. "Of course, that would explain your red hair. I had just assumed that you were half Japanese, but it makes sense now."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It would be better if we just pretended that this meeting never happened," she said without even looking at me, walking out.

Glaring, I hurried after her. When I got out in the hallway, I grabbed a hold of the back of her sleeve. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but I've already apologized for running into you…"

She sighed with exasperation. "No, it's not that. It's because you are a Niwa." She didn't seem too angry about having me grab the back of her sleeve. In fact, she seemed totally uncaring to my anger. If anything, that just made me even more irrritated.

"What does that have to do with you?"

She turned around, her voice devoid of all emotion. "It means everything, because I'm a Hikari." She pulled her sleeve from my grasp. "Hikari Rio." And, with that, she walked out to her car. My anger had evapporated with that bit of knowledge, leaving me dazed and confused, just standing there stupidly in the museum lobby.

She's…a Hikari?

To Be Continued…

Author's Notes:

(1) -I don't mean as in the southern US- I mean southern Japan, which is much different. Think Sorata's Japanese voice from X/1999, only female.

(2)- I figured that Daisuke inherited that trait, and Kosuke's just too calm to have such a habit…so Emiko is a rambler!

Next chapter is the Five of Cups, and it will take in "present time", when Emiko is 26.