Disclaimers: No, I don't own this. Only my characters and the entire strange, eerie concept.
Warnings: As it turns out, Dark and Krad are only FRIENDS, as well as the other two. There's a reason to this… so yeah. Oh, and the usual spelling and grammatical errors…
Whoopee… and update… why do I take so long?
000
"Why are you always pulling us into these messes…?"
-- Krad Hikari
"Why is it that we always end up getting in trouble and being chased and stuff? I didn't do anything to insult them. Honest!"
-- Dark Belcourt
--- Nine: So 'Twas ---
The next morning was gloomy, but Dark lay there, listening intently. It was still very cloudy out, but the distinct sound of Raine getting up and ready for work reached his ears and it was about half an hour later when she was out of the house. Sighing, he sat back up and muttered something under his breath.
Krad raised an eyebrow, still half-asleep, "Can't you just shut up once in a while? People are still trying to sleep here," he grumbled, turning over and grumbling something incoherent in the process.
"Uh… today IS a school day, you know," the purple-haired teen reminded the lump that was his blonde-haired friend.
"So?"
"Aren't we gonna be late?"
"Since when have you cared about being late?"
"Uh… I don't know!" Dark frowned, not knowing why he did care so much, "Since the time you stopped caring, for one!"
The blonde didn't bother to turn to face him, "And since when did I care about whether we were late for school or not? I mean, seriously, it's six in the morning. Unless it takes us over two hours to get to school…" he shook his head at Dark's stupidity, "Don't get over your head already and shut up; your voice is really beginning to annoy the hell out of me."
He fumed, "Why must you always say things that make me sound like an idiot…"
"Because you are one."
"Damn you."
"Temper, Dark, temper."
It was still quite early in the morning – seeing as Krad didn't want to wake up in the first place – and Dark could see that nothing was going to happen staying around and arguing with his half-awake friend. So he did the only thing left; get out of bed and walk around the house. Not like he had much of a choice anyway, and no one would notice the difference.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this idea was that it was so deserted that it made it just a BIT too creepy for its own good. Until he had turned on a light switch, he had been unable to see a thing, and the things that went 'bump' in the night was quite true in theory and in fact.
Then again, it might have been because of With.
With a sigh, Dark got some of the lights on and plodded onwards, with the demon-bunny-creature-of-sorts in tow. He wasn't really expecting to see anything out of place or amazing that would shock him – he just wanted to find a way to waste time – so he went to the first place that came to mind: Raine's room.
A place that was considered practically taboo to the rest of the family. They had grown up taught to respect another's private space and the like, but for some reason, the idea had never sunk into Dark's brain. It was either because of the fact that he had no regard to rules; or that he was just too stupid to comprehend the fact, Krad being the one to offer the latter idea.
So, being who he was, the purple-haired teen walked down one of the creepy hallways that were lined with candles and lamps of sorts that gave very little light, and it wasn't long before he reached the door that took him to the oldest sibling's room. He paused for a moment, undecided. It wasn't that he was afraid or something, it was just a very dangerous place to step in; and knowing Raine, anything could be in there. And that did not include fluorescent pink walls or lots and lots of frills.
No, there was something about her that he just couldn't trust; sure, she was the oldest with the most responsibility, but her actions were sometimes alarming, always mentioning their wrongdoings and making sacrifices to some unknown god… There was a good reason to be very afraid; Aeka and Nina knew that. Christina, though, only wanted to keep the family together and hated watching them arguing with each other, and Karal… was Karal. He snorted; if his sister met Risa Harada, it would be a nightmare come true.
Dark was jerked out of his thoughts as With, who had been sitting on his head, tapped him questioningly, "What, you still up there?" he asked blankly, eye raised in an attempt to look at the creature.
"Kyu!"
"Right… right… I'm supposed to go in there, aren't I?"
"Kyu kyu kyu!"
Giving up with his one-sided conversation, the purple-haired teen pulled himself together, turned the knob on the door, and entered cautiously. In a way, he had expected it to be booby-trapped or something, seeing as she was always so snappish about others in her room, but nothing happened and he stepped into the room. Finding the light switch, he flipped it on.
At a first glance, it was just like any other room; with a bed, desk and chair, some scattered books and paper and the odd pile of clothes that sat in the wardrobe. But Dark, being who he was, noticed the eerie-ness of it all and wondered if it had been the right thing to do to walk in here in the first place. Shuddering, he decided that since he was already there, he might as well take a look around, because he would never get another chance.
Almost dreading what might happen, Dark plunged into the unknown gaps of his family's history and life.
000
Krad opened one eye lazily as he heard the purple-haired teen re-enter the room. He hadn't gone to sleep as soon as he'd heard his friend leave, and wondered what was going on. Especially due to the fact that Dark seemed to be in a sort of trance as he took a seat at his desk. Turning over to get a better view of the teen's back, the blonde then searched around for something on the floor. Picking up a random object, it turned out to be a long kendo-looking stick of sorts. On the whole, he was wondering where it had come from and why, but then just shrugged to himself and did the only thing that seemed possible at the time; poke Dark in the back while he wasn't paying any attention.
As he had suspected, the purple-haired teen had had no idea that Krad was even awake, and although the poke wasn't all that hard, he toppled out of his seat with an undignified yelp and his hit the floor hard. But the only thought that crossed the blonde's mind was that Dark had been lucky that Daisuke and Satoshi had cleaned his room up yesterday.
Spluttering, Dark shot up and glared at Krad, who blinked back innocently, having dropped the stick on the floor again, "Don't do that to me!"
"Do what?"
"You know what I'm talking about!"
"Whatever," sitting up and tugging a hand through his hair, the blonde looked at the wall for a moment, while his friend struggled to get up properly, "So where did you go?"
Halfway through rearranging a stack of papers that didn't need rearranging, Dark froze, "What are you talking about?"
"At six in the morning, you walked out of this room," Krad explained patiently, turning his head to analyse his friend's reactions. Dark seemed to be incredibly tensed up at this point, and hadn't even bothered to turn to face him as he spoke; clearly something was going on that shouldn't be. "And it's been about an hour since then. So where did you go?"
Coughing under his breath, the purple-haired teen straightened up, "…I have no idea what you're talking about." yet he refused to turn around to face him, and the blonde raised an eyebrow curiously.
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. Besides, you went right back to sleep after that." It also sounded like Dark was attempting to reassure himself more than convincing Krad that he hadn't gone anywhere. But these signs were enough to bluntly prove that something had happened, or had been witnessed, and he was refusing to talk about it; again. And, like every other time, the blonde decided to drop the subject for the time being, and got out of bed, rubbing his eyes.
He really did have to talk to Dark about all this; otherwise they were going to be left in the bleakness of confusion if something bad happened, and they had gone through that one too many times for his liking.
Ignoring all that was around him, Dark continued his thinking-sulking train of thoughts and didn't pay the least attention when Krad had left the room and slammed the door behind him.
It wasn't a matter of trust or something; he just didn't know what he was supposed to say. In a way, he was plain freaked out, and dragging his friends into the picture again was a sure sign to cause more trouble within the families and the like as well, so he was just bugged with it all. Whatever he had witnessed had really put him off for the time being, and he would rather not pay too much attention to it.
000
Locating the other two, Krad burst in loudly. Sitting up and yawning, Daisuke blinked at him, while Satoshi sat in a daze that clearly said that he wouldn't be listening too closely as to what was happening.
"Krad-kun? What's going on?" the redhead asked curiously as the blonde closed the door behind him, shaking slightly. "Did something happen?"
"Yeah," he muttered back stiffly, "And I don't think that this is going to turn out good at all."
"Aah…" frowning, Daisuke tapped his friend for a moment, but then shrugged when he got no reaction, "Dark-kun always did have a stranger life than the rest of us, I guess we could say. But his family really is… scary."
"Different, yes," nodded Krad in agreement, "But the fact that there's some sacrifice thing going on now and they want to get Dark's youngest sister pulled into it is just making me go insane! Not to mention the fact that he went somewhere early this morning and won't tell me about it. And I never got that homework done because of all the fighting."
While he waited for the younger boy to process the rambling in his head, the blonde took a seat in the cramped guestroom and tried to get his tangled and knotted mind thought out straight. He was just so out of it and the monster attacks really weren't helping matters. And the contacting with the spirits continued to play through his mind like a broken record as well.
That was the biggest problem of it all; not only were normal people and magic-gifted people in danger of one thing or another – thanks to constant monster waves that had no reason behind it – and the spirits on the other side weren't all that happy either. So they were stuck in the middle of a battleground, so to speak. And that really stank.
"So that means that they're in danger…" muttered Daisuke, partly to himself, and partly to Satoshi, who was slowly getting out of his sleep-induced-out-of-whack state, "Do you have any idea what this might be about, Satoshi-kun?"
The blue-haired boy rubbed his eyes slowly, blinking at the light that filtered through the fogged-up glass of the window, "Hn… we're all doomed?"
Krad couldn't help but roll his eyes, "Wow, how did you come to THAT conclusion?"
Falling into silence for a moment, the redhead got out of bed and paced the room, before, finally, holding up his right hand towards the other two. Like a light bulb (or a bunsen burner) a flicker of magic appeared in the middle of his palm and sat there, strands of dark red magic swirling freely as the center pulsated slowly.
"Why is it that people fear magic?" he asked softly, knowing that the other two were listening in, "Why do they think that it's so different from the rest of us? The fact that some religions seem to want to use it for the worst of situations, we've always had to keep a low profile, haven't we?"
Nodding, the blonde frowned, "Christina has always shown sparks of untrained magic. Not strong, true, but it's there."
"Exactly. They seem to know, in any case. Dark-kun won't say anything?"
"No."
"Hm…"
Coughing slightly, Satoshi gained their attention and pointed bluntly at a clock that was hung up on the wall, still intact and ticking away slowly; "We're going to be late for school." Anything else that might have been said was soon forgotten as they left Dark's home and charged back to their own houses to grab what they needed. Trust people to make such random comments like that.
000
"So Krad Hikari and Dark Belcourt are abse--" stated the homeroom teacher, only to stop abruptly as the blonde charged in, nursing a stitch in his side and not looking all that well-groomed in the end. Coughing slightly, he gave the student a long, thoughtful glare, "Well, I see that you seemed to have managed to drag yourself out of bed well enough. Take a seat." Krad nodded vaguely before stumbling towards his seat and the teacher took a look at the roll again, "So the only person who's late today is Belcourt? Has anyone seen him today?"
No one replied and he marked Dark off. As he tried to regain his breathing patterns to normal levels, Krad's mind slowly registered that Dark hadn't made it to school, and it was only ten minutes into English that he had finally worked it out and panicked.
Jerking up, after grumbling about annoying siblings that just didn't understand, and the blonde glanced to the empty seat that belonged to his friend; it was empty. Well, why else would the teacher have said that he was absent if he had been there? Falling into a muse about how stupid Dark could be, the blonde had to wait for break before he could track down Daisuke and Satoshi.
Trailing towards the relative peace of the school roof, the redhead seemed worried as the blue-haired boy pulled out a thick book with the traditional number of whacky symbols that screamed magic-potential.
"I'm surprised that anything worse could happen," he muttered in a distracted tone while turning the pages randomly, "But it seems to me that you can go a lot further than just raw magic running amok."
"What do you mean?" asked Krad.
"I mean that this 'sacrifice' could be a lot more dangerous," explained Satoshi, "Seeing as his parents are sadistic maniacs in the making, who influences their children, and if they know that she can use some branches of magic, they may be trying to either summon or resurrect something. And knowing them, it's going to be something bad."
"So what are we supposed to do?" asked Daisuke, reading over his friend's shoulder in the process and frowning lightly. "We can't fight it, can we?"
"That would be suicidal."
"Delay it?"
"It'll still happen in the end."
"What? Are we going to gather an army or something?"
"I doubt it."
Rolling his eyes, the blonde stalked over to face the two younger teens, "Seeing as we're the few who can use magic these days, it's not like we have much of a choice, do we?"
Satoshi pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and met Krad's gaze coolly, "I suppose we really don't have much of a choice, true. But it doesn't mean that we have to jump into the picture and it'll turn out fine. Luck has always been on our side, but even luck won't help too much if we're not prepared."
"And I don't know that?"
They glared at each other silently for a moment, but they said nothing more. Daisuke had relieved Satoshi of his book and was reading it slowly. The pages were faint brown like but not brittle, and the text was still clear enough to read. Symbols and runes filled the sides of the pages, and he deciphered them slowly.
Death is the second stage of life.
Spells that can destroy and kill everyone, including the user…
People fear them greatly.
Daisuke inclined his head before reading the actual text:
Magic has long since been considered rather dangerous, with many consequences, with the bearer's holding a lot of self-responsibility. Magic usually run in the blood-line, although a number of rare cases will allow people to be gifted with it without having any ancestral magic-potentials.
Items can also be used, and those with magic are the basis of protection for the rest of the world; as monsters and other chaotic mishaps can pour forth without warning.
Yet magic is strong; dangerous, and shouldn't be considered as something that can be controlled and tamed. Magic has many forms, the strongest being unattained for millenniums, due to the fact that it killed the last user.
It's danger, but necessary—
"What I want to know is why Dark isn't here!" Krad snapped all of a sudden, making the other two start in surprise. Satoshi shot him a glare, but the redhead had to agree with the aggravated blonde, who was shaking a fist at the sky for no real reason. It was clear that he wanted to punch a certain purple-haired teen in the face, but couldn't.
"He wasn't sick when you left him, was he?" asked Daisuke.
"He was out of it," admitted the blonde grudgingly, "But not sick. I would have known. But the fact was that he left the room at six, after someone left the house, and he came back an hour later like he was in a trance. He wouldn't tell me anything and I left him."
The redhead blinked, "Do you think that he was possessed?"
"No; I would have known, then."
"Then he's worried?"
"A possibility."
"… I'm worried."
"Should we all be now?"
"I think so."
"…"
000
Pacing within his room, Dark was chunnering to himself in self-reprimandation. Oh yeah, he was bugged badly, and he was hating himself for it. With was sitting on his pillow – occupied only once by Krad that morning – and watched as the teen continued to mutter incoherent sentences and lines to no one in particular.
"Kyu?"
"Can't believe… so absurd… doing such a thing…"
Raine's room held so many fragments of their family life; all that time that was what she'd been doing, and he hated her for it. She was family, true, but it didn't change matters now because they were all going to be doomed in the end, that was for sure. How could he have been so stupid? Of course she would end up betraying them in the end; she had never been on their side, anyway.
It was so stupid, so pointless; they had nothing to gain from this all, and everything to lose. And the last thing that Dark wanted to have to face was getting his friends put in danger: especially Krad…
With a frustrated sigh, the teen flopped back onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, "… Why us…?" he asked no one in particular.
000
Back in class, where teachers just kept going on and on and on, Krad remembered the small box that Dark had given him yesterday and pulled it out of his pocket. It was sticky taped to the point of insanity – or way too much eagerness – and he wondered how he was going to get it opened. It seemed rather stupid to have a gift and not get it opened, so while the teacher rambled on about equations, the blonde struggled to find a way to get the box opened safely and sticky tape-free.
Ten minutes later, he gave up and ended up slicing it in half with his – incredibly sharp – scissors. Praying that he hadn't butchered the item within (although there was a good chance of that happening), Krad pulled it apart and something fell into his lap.
Looking down at the item, he blinked. At first he would have thought that it was some sort of flat rock that Dark had decided to wrap up for no real reason, but upon closer inspection, he was forced to believe that it was some sort of oval-shaped pin. Not only that, but it seemed to have elaborate designs etched into it, so fine that he had to squint to make out what they were supposed to be. Symbols most likely, and the jewel embedded in it seemed to be jade (yes, he was guessing at this point).
Wondering why on earth Dark would get him a pin for his birthday, he didn't hear the teacher call for him to answer the question.
"—Hikari!"
Krad started and looked up quickly, "Yes?"
"I was wondering, so kindly, if you could answer question fourteen for us, Hikari," grumbled the annoyed maths teacher, "With formulas, explanations and the right answer, of course."
Glancing down at his textbook, the blonde couldn't help but roll his eyes, "Yes…"
Scanning the question quickly, he gave a random answer, got it wrong, and then sat down again as the teacher called up another student, but not before shooting Krad a suspicious glare. Not caring the least about what the answer to the problem was – or how to get the right answer – the blonde slumped back and took a look at the pin again. True, that was a weird birthday present, yet there was something about that he couldn't put his foot on. Was it because of the designs, or because that jades were well known to hold a good deal of magic power? He wasn't too sure anymore.
Shoving the pin into his pocket and dumping the remains of the box into his bag, Krad focused all his attention on the window; waiting for the day to end so that he could 'visit' Dark and find out what was going on. It was getting a bit too hectic and chaotic to just be coincidences, and knowing the Belcourt family, they were behind it somehow; whether they liked it or not.
000
"Hey! Hikari-kun!" called a voice as the blonde was about to leave the school building with Daisuke and Satoshi. He turned with a raised eyebrow as a girl with dyed-aqua (at least, he thought it was dyed) hair ran up to him, bad swinging over her shoulder. He recognised her by sight as there weren't many student with such hair colours – like the fact that Satoshi had blue hair and Dark had purple, of all colours – yet didn't say anything.
"May I help you?" he asked her.
"You are Hikari-kun, right?" she panted, and he nodded in confirmation, "I'm Megumi Sakaguchi; half-demon student and all that usual junk."
"Yeah, what about it?" why she would be talking about her lineage was a mystery to him, and what was the point of it? He was really lost now, as were the other two boys in front of him.
Megumi smiled at him, "Well, I suppose I just thought it was best for you to know that things aren't exactly working out and people are getting into more riots than they should. I mean, monsters and stuff. It's not a pretty sight."
"And what's that got to do with us?"
"Well, demons aren't happy, from what my mother's told me, and with being shunned all their life, they're bound to start some sort of death wave sooner or later."
"…? Shouldn't you be telling this to Melanie?"
"She can't do anything, but you can. That is, you and your friends." The aqua-haired girl waved to them, "Keep that in mind, okay?"
When she was out of sight, Krad exchanged perplexed glances with Daisuke, while Satoshi watched after her, frowning deeply. "She… was weird. Don't you think?"
"But it seems to be some sort of warning… so…"
"Oh yeah," as they began the trip towards Dark's house, the blonde dug out the pin and handed it over to the redhead, "Do you have any idea what this could be for or anything? It was in the sticky-taped box that Dark gave me."
Turning the object between his hands, the redhead frowned slightly, silently, before handing it to Satoshi, who took a quick glance at it before handing it back.
"…Well?" asked Krad.
"It's got magic in it," Daisuke offered helpfully, "But what sort of magic, I'm at a loss. Not a curse or anything… just… magic. Unformed, untouched and yeah, the usual."
"But the designs in the jewel are something else," added Satoshi, looking ahead of him, "They seem to either read some spell that we've never heard of, or some other related topic. And we know that the jade is one of the few magic-holding rocks that are useful if you can't use magic."
The blonde snorted, tucking the pin away, "I worked that out long ago, thank you very much."
"But you asked first."
"I know."
Satoshi scowled but said nothing more as they made their way to the evil-aura-emitting street that Dark lived in. Most people seemed to avoid the place and hurried onwards, not paying any attention to the three teens that said nothing, yet seemed to communicate without words. What they were saying and why was a mystery to them, but it really didn't matter.
About two house-blocks away from their destination, Krad froze and jerked his head up, frowning deeply. Daisuke turned his head, "Krad-kun?"
"They're coming." He stated grimly.
Before the other two could really question what he meant by that, the world kind of went… black…
000
The fact that he had the entire house to himself, Dark couldn't help but feel like he was missing something very important that was incredibly necessary, and he could only pace the empty hallways and rooms out of pure agitation.
Glancing vaguely at something in his hands, he stopped pacing and stared at it for a moment, as if in disbelief. Looking up quickly, he bolted down the stairs and out of the house, leaving the door to swing lazily in the non-existent breeze. Looking around anxiously, he caught sight of some huddled figures and ran over.
Skidding to a halt, he bent down and pulled the innate form of Daisuke up a bit, cursing to himself. He shook the redhead lightly, hoping for some sort of reaction. By the cuts on the younger boy's arms, he could only assume the worst.
"Daisuke! C'mon, wake up!"
Strangely enough, it wasn't long before the redhead stirred and opened his eyes blearing, blinking at Dark almost blankly, "Dar… k…"
"What happened!" he demanded.
"Dar… k… they… Kr… a… d…"
"What? Where's Krad!" suddenly it seemed like the bottom of Dark's stomach had disintegrated.
"They took him… Dark… they took Krad away…"
000
And there you have it. Something actually happens! (gasps in shock and faints) I never thought it would be possible for me to stop rambling on about pointlessness and actually come to some sort of… complication! Yay! And now everyone has to wait until I update to find out what happens XD
chrnoskitty: Took me a while to update again, huh?
neko-nya: In the end I just had to hurt him (somewhat) in the end. Computers can be so immature at times XO And it's anyone's guess as to where he's gone and what they're going to do to him!
kyo's little koneko: XD And yeah, as the youngest child with potential…
Koway Oceshia: Wow… er… confusing in a good way or a bad way? I'm actually piecing the story together slowly while typing it out. I only had the beginning really (what, not even the end!) and the middle's a blur. I think I confused myself XO Thanks for the comments!
Er… what else to say? Well, stick around (hopefully) and… uhm… yeah! Thanks again! You all get cookies and ice-cream! (I want ice-cream… o.O)