AN: SO SORRY! Big round of apologies for slowness. School is hard, family is hard, hell, life is hard. If you don't know who Magdaria is…she comes into Kenshin around episode 68? Sister to Amakusa, I believe, and they're trying to Christianize Japan, something along those lines. I'm really tweaking her character a bit here, for my use. Forgive me. THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS, I'm really enjoying them!
"Magdaria, I presume?"
"Yeah. You're my uncle Saitou?" Magdaria switched the suitcase in her hands to stifle another cough. Her heart beat a little faster, nervous that this might become another trip to the hospital. Saitou pretended not to notice.
"Amakusa and your grandmother took a big risk sending you over here. I hate kids."
"I'm not a kid." Magdaria retorted.
"I hate teenagers too."
"Why are you a high school professor?" Magdaria questioned.
"That's a question I've never really figured out, Magdaria."
Magdaria smiled, and Saitou stepped aside to let his niece inside the dorm.
***
"One more week until Spring Break. You've got everything figured out?" Kenshin asked.
"Sure thing, kid." Julie smiled, tousling his hair. "Lisa didn't let one tiny detail slip out from under her nose."
Lisa stopped drinking her lemonade and gave Julie a little glare. She smoothed a piece of her red hair behind her ear and smiled good-naturedly.
"You want to see pictures of them?" Lisa asked, whipping an envelope out of her purse. She handed it to Kenshin, who eagerly opened it.
Two girls stood side-by-side, rather solemnly and slightly confused and scared. The two were obviously fraternal twins. They were wearing faded little sundresses, and were holding each other's hands. Kenshin smiled. So, these two would become his sisters.
"Cute." he handed the picture back to Lisa, who smiled ecstatically and put it back in her purse. Julie took another sip from her lemonade and threw the cup into a nearby trashcan.
"What do you want to do next?" She asked. They had been walking around the mall, which was a bit awkward for Kenshin. Not only was he walking around the mall with his parents and actually having a good time, but they were lesbians. He cringed a little when people looked at them in surprise or condemnation.
"Want to go see a movie?" Lisa suggested.
"Sure." Julie and Kenshin answered at the same time. Lisa clapped her hands in excitement.
"Cold Mountain!" Lisa squealed.
"Why not a kickass action movie?" Julie begged.
"The Last Samurai sounded good." Kenshin shrugged. He found this disagreement amusing. Lisa pouted and Julie groaned. It dragged on for a full ten minutes.
They ended up watching Lord of the Rings to compromise action and romance, though they all agreed they would never watch another movie that was 3 hours and thirty minutes long.
***
Magdaria nodded her head to the music, roughly sketching in her notebook. She was sitting on the edge of the fountain, waiting for Saitou to get back to the dorms, because she had lost her key. Two days living with her uncle, and she was already losing keys. She sighed, staring at the pages of her now gray notebook. Pencil markings were everywhere, in pictures and words and random scribbles. Over the soft volume of her headphones, Magdaria heard laughter. Looking up, she saw two raven-haired girls talking and laughing, taking out their keys to head to the dorms. The shorter one wore her hair in a braid, and the other wore a long ponytail. They waved when they caught her looking, and she quickly turned away, fingering the volume to her CD player.
"Hi!" The girl with the ponytail was right next to her, something Magdaria had not noticed due to the increase of volume while listening to the Deftones "Change".
"Hi." Magdaria turned off the CD player.
"My name is Kamiya Kaoru, and this is my roommate Makimachi Misao." She gestured to the other girl. Magdaria took in their appearances carefully. This "Kaoru" girl was fairly cheerful but looked overworked, and she wasn't wearing any make up, save what appeared to be chapstick. Kaoru was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a faded blue tank top. In her hands were a few books. Academics, of course, no wonder the girl was overworked. Then there was a kendo book. Magdaria finished her analysis of Kaoru by concluding that she was hard working, mostly independent, soft-spoken, and not entirely a crowd pleaser. Magdaria's eyes moved over to Misao. Now, here was a story.
Her jeans, whereas Kaoru's were slightly worn, were ripped in the various places and tattered at the ends. She wore some sort of gloves with no fingers that were made out of fishnets, and a white tank top with the Eldewater Highschool logo on it. Her face was also devoid of any makeup. Magdaria concluded she was determined, assertive, and yet friendly at the same time. Putting both of her conclusions together and a few other observations, she assumed that both of them had come from the gym practicing martial arts.
"Muto Magdaria. I apologize for my slowness, I like to observe people and I'm afraid that makes me over-analytical sometimes."
"Quite alright, as long as you're not quick to judge." Misao gave her a threatening glare. Kaoru gave Magdaria and apologetic smile.
"You new? It's second semester, isn't that hard?" Kaoru asked.
"A little. I don't get a chance to go to school very much, not recently. I've got so much make up work it's almost unreal…" She laughed.
"You don't get to go to school?" Kaoru asked, confused.
"I…uh…my grandmother has been ill a lot lately and my brother works. I don't really want to talk about that." Magdaria, though she hated doing so, was lying. SHE was the one who had been so ill recently, though her brother did work a lot. At least that part was true. Her grandmother had been the one at home to care for Amakusa when he got home after visiting her in the hospital. It taxed his energy so much, and she had begged him to not to see her every day.
"I'm sorry." Kaoru apologized again.
"It's okay."
"You…want to come with us? We were going back to our dorm to watch a movie."
"Which one?" Magdaria asked.
"Something about a Vampire Hunter D," Kaoru grimaced, "Misao insisted."
Magdaria smiled. Making friends had never been this easy or this quick. She was glad.
***
Sanosuke flipped on the lights in the dorm room, only to have five angry faces whirl around and tell him to turn it back off. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was playing across the screen of the pathetic box Kenshin and his roommates called a TV.
"Cool! Have you gotten to the part where-"
"SHUT UP!" They shouted. "Magdaria's never seen this one!"
"SERIOUSLY? Come on, this is the best- hey wait. Who's Magdaria?"
Kenshin, Kaoru, Misao, and Soujiro all pointed to the girl sitting between them on the couch. She turned around and waved, only to have the others force her to turn around again as the tension on the TV screen mounted. Sanosuke felt himself go limp, and he leaned in the doorway. Magdaria…she was…mysterious. Sanosuke normally liked those kind of girls, but something about Magdaria made him want to go inside her mind and pry the secrets out of her. He sauntered over to the couch, found there was no room for him there, and settled down on the floor to watch the movie.
By the time it was over, Kenshin was asleep, Soujiro had gotten a sugar high, and Sanosuke's ass had fallen asleep. Not to mention that Misao was jumping up and down, recounting every "kickass" detail. Kaoru was aiding Misao in her detail-by-detail critique, and Magdaria was sitting in her little corner on the couch, amused by the scene before her. Sano glanced at Magdaria.
{Definitely hot} He grinned, scheming up a way to lure her away from his friends.
"Want a drink?" He asked. Sano calmly awaited her reply, which was a mere nod of her head. Her dark hair hid much of her expression from view, and the burgundy highlights gleamed in the lamplight. Sano motioned her to follow him into the kitchen. To take as much time as possible, he decided to pour soda into individual cups for everyone, which was something he never would have done. Sano would probably have either just taken a can for himself, or, if in a nice mood, tossed cans at other people's heads.
"You're new?" He asked, slowwwly shuffling over to the refrigerator.
"Yes." She replied quietly. Sano groaned inside his head. Magdaria wasn't going to open up easily.
"Where are you staying?"
"With family." She shrugged.
"Oh, so you don't board."
"No. I do. I moved in with my Uncle Saitou." Magdaria poured a coke into one of the cups and drank it. Sano was glad she missed his expression of panic.
"You live with Saitou?!"
"Yeah. My brother thought it would be good for me."
"Your brothers a crackhead."
"No," She said, slightly offended, "He's mostly God's little angel with a few crazy ideas here and there. I guess he just got tired of my argument that his ministry was bullshit. He wants to become a sort of professor in Christianity, but not a preacher. I mean, where's that going to get him? His life is already fucking going downhill, he depends on Grandma too much, college fees are going up, there are no job openings for people like him. And he thinks praying and doing God's will is just going to save him from every piece of shit life throws at him. And if it doesn't, it was just 'all part of the plan'. Yeah. Bullshit."
Sano, rapt in her story, almost let one of the cups overflow. Jerking back, he wiped up the mess and leaned against the countertop. Magdaria was playing with the zipper on her jacket, embarrassed that she had spoken so much.
"You're wearing a cross, though. Why is Christianity such bullshit?"
"I wear the cross because it was a gift from my brother and I love him, not Christ. The reason why it's bullshit…well…God abandoned me long ago. Amakusa should have seen that, but he didn't. It only made him want to believe more, because he's scared. He's afraid that there really isn't anyone out there looking after us. He's scared that things don't happen for a reason."
Sano leaned more toward Magdaria. In that moment, she hated him more than anything. She had never been able to talk so freely with anyone, and they had just met! Magdaria began to draw back, but he caught her hand. She froze, feeling her heartbeat; her nerves tingle. She was afraid of being too close to people. Was that a tickle in the back of her throat? Would she cough? Would it turn into one of the attacks that seized her lungs, demanding attention from the emergency room?
"What happened that made you stop believing?" Sano whispered, trying to look into her eyes.
"My parents died." Magdaria shuddered. It was only half the reason. As a matter of fact, it was barely half the reason that made her stop believing. There was her disease. Her parents' death, of course, contributed. She had been an outcast in school, but that led back to her disease. Tuberculosis was the thief that took away her faith.
"My parents died too." Sano mumbled, remembering the night. "I was seven years old. Adzuma, that's my sister, she was almost 18. Her birthday would have been a week later. She was baby-sitting me. We were watching out the window in the dining room, waving at them as they were driving away to go to dinner. The other car just came out of nowhere, sped straight on into their car…both went skidding down the street." Sano grew quieter as he spoke, taking on a monotone. Magdaria felt herself tense up again, though this time it was because she dreaded where the story was going.
"Those few seconds the cars were skidding down the street... I thought time had stopped. Adzuma's hand was clawing into my shoulder. Her scream…it was so loud. Everything just stopped right there. I saw Mom's head fly back, and I knew it would come forward. On the dashboard. Adzuma was biting back her screams, she told me not to worry, the airbags would save them. I saw Dad's look of horror on his face. Mom reached out for him, they were almost holding hands. And then…their heads went forward. They closed their eyes, braced themselves for the pain…
"The airbags didn't work."
Magdaria was crying now. She hated Sanosuke. Hated him, hated him, hated him. She was remembering too much: Mom's face when she found out Dad had been killed by zealots in the country he was preaching Christianity to. How she had thrown herself over the bridge along with her father's ashes, to be with him in heaven. God's realm. The bastard God that took her parents from her and gave her a terminal illness. Christianity had ruined her family. God had abandoned her. But then…if there was no God, no one had abandoned her. She had been alone all along.
"I could feel it. I thought I could feel their bones shattering, in my own body, as I watched. And after that, Adzuma took a job, brought me to an apartment. We sold everything…." He continued, but Magdaria had seemingly gone deaf. At the end of his story, tears were streaming down his face, and Magdaria recounted the tale of her father being a missionary, and her crazed mother. In the end, they had taken each other in their arms and were crying into each other's shoulders. Sanosuke felt that Magdaria was more than just a hot chick he had just met. As for Magdaria, her hate for Sanosuke was waning.
"Magdaria, I presume?"
"Yeah. You're my uncle Saitou?" Magdaria switched the suitcase in her hands to stifle another cough. Her heart beat a little faster, nervous that this might become another trip to the hospital. Saitou pretended not to notice.
"Amakusa and your grandmother took a big risk sending you over here. I hate kids."
"I'm not a kid." Magdaria retorted.
"I hate teenagers too."
"Why are you a high school professor?" Magdaria questioned.
"That's a question I've never really figured out, Magdaria."
Magdaria smiled, and Saitou stepped aside to let his niece inside the dorm.
***
"One more week until Spring Break. You've got everything figured out?" Kenshin asked.
"Sure thing, kid." Julie smiled, tousling his hair. "Lisa didn't let one tiny detail slip out from under her nose."
Lisa stopped drinking her lemonade and gave Julie a little glare. She smoothed a piece of her red hair behind her ear and smiled good-naturedly.
"You want to see pictures of them?" Lisa asked, whipping an envelope out of her purse. She handed it to Kenshin, who eagerly opened it.
Two girls stood side-by-side, rather solemnly and slightly confused and scared. The two were obviously fraternal twins. They were wearing faded little sundresses, and were holding each other's hands. Kenshin smiled. So, these two would become his sisters.
"Cute." he handed the picture back to Lisa, who smiled ecstatically and put it back in her purse. Julie took another sip from her lemonade and threw the cup into a nearby trashcan.
"What do you want to do next?" She asked. They had been walking around the mall, which was a bit awkward for Kenshin. Not only was he walking around the mall with his parents and actually having a good time, but they were lesbians. He cringed a little when people looked at them in surprise or condemnation.
"Want to go see a movie?" Lisa suggested.
"Sure." Julie and Kenshin answered at the same time. Lisa clapped her hands in excitement.
"Cold Mountain!" Lisa squealed.
"Why not a kickass action movie?" Julie begged.
"The Last Samurai sounded good." Kenshin shrugged. He found this disagreement amusing. Lisa pouted and Julie groaned. It dragged on for a full ten minutes.
They ended up watching Lord of the Rings to compromise action and romance, though they all agreed they would never watch another movie that was 3 hours and thirty minutes long.
***
Magdaria nodded her head to the music, roughly sketching in her notebook. She was sitting on the edge of the fountain, waiting for Saitou to get back to the dorms, because she had lost her key. Two days living with her uncle, and she was already losing keys. She sighed, staring at the pages of her now gray notebook. Pencil markings were everywhere, in pictures and words and random scribbles. Over the soft volume of her headphones, Magdaria heard laughter. Looking up, she saw two raven-haired girls talking and laughing, taking out their keys to head to the dorms. The shorter one wore her hair in a braid, and the other wore a long ponytail. They waved when they caught her looking, and she quickly turned away, fingering the volume to her CD player.
"Hi!" The girl with the ponytail was right next to her, something Magdaria had not noticed due to the increase of volume while listening to the Deftones "Change".
"Hi." Magdaria turned off the CD player.
"My name is Kamiya Kaoru, and this is my roommate Makimachi Misao." She gestured to the other girl. Magdaria took in their appearances carefully. This "Kaoru" girl was fairly cheerful but looked overworked, and she wasn't wearing any make up, save what appeared to be chapstick. Kaoru was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a faded blue tank top. In her hands were a few books. Academics, of course, no wonder the girl was overworked. Then there was a kendo book. Magdaria finished her analysis of Kaoru by concluding that she was hard working, mostly independent, soft-spoken, and not entirely a crowd pleaser. Magdaria's eyes moved over to Misao. Now, here was a story.
Her jeans, whereas Kaoru's were slightly worn, were ripped in the various places and tattered at the ends. She wore some sort of gloves with no fingers that were made out of fishnets, and a white tank top with the Eldewater Highschool logo on it. Her face was also devoid of any makeup. Magdaria concluded she was determined, assertive, and yet friendly at the same time. Putting both of her conclusions together and a few other observations, she assumed that both of them had come from the gym practicing martial arts.
"Muto Magdaria. I apologize for my slowness, I like to observe people and I'm afraid that makes me over-analytical sometimes."
"Quite alright, as long as you're not quick to judge." Misao gave her a threatening glare. Kaoru gave Magdaria and apologetic smile.
"You new? It's second semester, isn't that hard?" Kaoru asked.
"A little. I don't get a chance to go to school very much, not recently. I've got so much make up work it's almost unreal…" She laughed.
"You don't get to go to school?" Kaoru asked, confused.
"I…uh…my grandmother has been ill a lot lately and my brother works. I don't really want to talk about that." Magdaria, though she hated doing so, was lying. SHE was the one who had been so ill recently, though her brother did work a lot. At least that part was true. Her grandmother had been the one at home to care for Amakusa when he got home after visiting her in the hospital. It taxed his energy so much, and she had begged him to not to see her every day.
"I'm sorry." Kaoru apologized again.
"It's okay."
"You…want to come with us? We were going back to our dorm to watch a movie."
"Which one?" Magdaria asked.
"Something about a Vampire Hunter D," Kaoru grimaced, "Misao insisted."
Magdaria smiled. Making friends had never been this easy or this quick. She was glad.
***
Sanosuke flipped on the lights in the dorm room, only to have five angry faces whirl around and tell him to turn it back off. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was playing across the screen of the pathetic box Kenshin and his roommates called a TV.
"Cool! Have you gotten to the part where-"
"SHUT UP!" They shouted. "Magdaria's never seen this one!"
"SERIOUSLY? Come on, this is the best- hey wait. Who's Magdaria?"
Kenshin, Kaoru, Misao, and Soujiro all pointed to the girl sitting between them on the couch. She turned around and waved, only to have the others force her to turn around again as the tension on the TV screen mounted. Sanosuke felt himself go limp, and he leaned in the doorway. Magdaria…she was…mysterious. Sanosuke normally liked those kind of girls, but something about Magdaria made him want to go inside her mind and pry the secrets out of her. He sauntered over to the couch, found there was no room for him there, and settled down on the floor to watch the movie.
By the time it was over, Kenshin was asleep, Soujiro had gotten a sugar high, and Sanosuke's ass had fallen asleep. Not to mention that Misao was jumping up and down, recounting every "kickass" detail. Kaoru was aiding Misao in her detail-by-detail critique, and Magdaria was sitting in her little corner on the couch, amused by the scene before her. Sano glanced at Magdaria.
{Definitely hot} He grinned, scheming up a way to lure her away from his friends.
"Want a drink?" He asked. Sano calmly awaited her reply, which was a mere nod of her head. Her dark hair hid much of her expression from view, and the burgundy highlights gleamed in the lamplight. Sano motioned her to follow him into the kitchen. To take as much time as possible, he decided to pour soda into individual cups for everyone, which was something he never would have done. Sano would probably have either just taken a can for himself, or, if in a nice mood, tossed cans at other people's heads.
"You're new?" He asked, slowwwly shuffling over to the refrigerator.
"Yes." She replied quietly. Sano groaned inside his head. Magdaria wasn't going to open up easily.
"Where are you staying?"
"With family." She shrugged.
"Oh, so you don't board."
"No. I do. I moved in with my Uncle Saitou." Magdaria poured a coke into one of the cups and drank it. Sano was glad she missed his expression of panic.
"You live with Saitou?!"
"Yeah. My brother thought it would be good for me."
"Your brothers a crackhead."
"No," She said, slightly offended, "He's mostly God's little angel with a few crazy ideas here and there. I guess he just got tired of my argument that his ministry was bullshit. He wants to become a sort of professor in Christianity, but not a preacher. I mean, where's that going to get him? His life is already fucking going downhill, he depends on Grandma too much, college fees are going up, there are no job openings for people like him. And he thinks praying and doing God's will is just going to save him from every piece of shit life throws at him. And if it doesn't, it was just 'all part of the plan'. Yeah. Bullshit."
Sano, rapt in her story, almost let one of the cups overflow. Jerking back, he wiped up the mess and leaned against the countertop. Magdaria was playing with the zipper on her jacket, embarrassed that she had spoken so much.
"You're wearing a cross, though. Why is Christianity such bullshit?"
"I wear the cross because it was a gift from my brother and I love him, not Christ. The reason why it's bullshit…well…God abandoned me long ago. Amakusa should have seen that, but he didn't. It only made him want to believe more, because he's scared. He's afraid that there really isn't anyone out there looking after us. He's scared that things don't happen for a reason."
Sano leaned more toward Magdaria. In that moment, she hated him more than anything. She had never been able to talk so freely with anyone, and they had just met! Magdaria began to draw back, but he caught her hand. She froze, feeling her heartbeat; her nerves tingle. She was afraid of being too close to people. Was that a tickle in the back of her throat? Would she cough? Would it turn into one of the attacks that seized her lungs, demanding attention from the emergency room?
"What happened that made you stop believing?" Sano whispered, trying to look into her eyes.
"My parents died." Magdaria shuddered. It was only half the reason. As a matter of fact, it was barely half the reason that made her stop believing. There was her disease. Her parents' death, of course, contributed. She had been an outcast in school, but that led back to her disease. Tuberculosis was the thief that took away her faith.
"My parents died too." Sano mumbled, remembering the night. "I was seven years old. Adzuma, that's my sister, she was almost 18. Her birthday would have been a week later. She was baby-sitting me. We were watching out the window in the dining room, waving at them as they were driving away to go to dinner. The other car just came out of nowhere, sped straight on into their car…both went skidding down the street." Sano grew quieter as he spoke, taking on a monotone. Magdaria felt herself tense up again, though this time it was because she dreaded where the story was going.
"Those few seconds the cars were skidding down the street... I thought time had stopped. Adzuma's hand was clawing into my shoulder. Her scream…it was so loud. Everything just stopped right there. I saw Mom's head fly back, and I knew it would come forward. On the dashboard. Adzuma was biting back her screams, she told me not to worry, the airbags would save them. I saw Dad's look of horror on his face. Mom reached out for him, they were almost holding hands. And then…their heads went forward. They closed their eyes, braced themselves for the pain…
"The airbags didn't work."
Magdaria was crying now. She hated Sanosuke. Hated him, hated him, hated him. She was remembering too much: Mom's face when she found out Dad had been killed by zealots in the country he was preaching Christianity to. How she had thrown herself over the bridge along with her father's ashes, to be with him in heaven. God's realm. The bastard God that took her parents from her and gave her a terminal illness. Christianity had ruined her family. God had abandoned her. But then…if there was no God, no one had abandoned her. She had been alone all along.
"I could feel it. I thought I could feel their bones shattering, in my own body, as I watched. And after that, Adzuma took a job, brought me to an apartment. We sold everything…." He continued, but Magdaria had seemingly gone deaf. At the end of his story, tears were streaming down his face, and Magdaria recounted the tale of her father being a missionary, and her crazed mother. In the end, they had taken each other in their arms and were crying into each other's shoulders. Sanosuke felt that Magdaria was more than just a hot chick he had just met. As for Magdaria, her hate for Sanosuke was waning.