Mikau: Hey everybody! I'm in that Mothers and Daughters play that I auditioned for, so it looks like I'm busy again until February. Tryouts for Into the Woods are on Monday, and I'm soooo nervous. There are only 12 women's parts, and there are sooooo many Seniors and Juniors. I really don't think a mere Sophomore like me has much of a chance. Oh well, I'll probably be on crew. It'll be great fun. I'm still gonna audition though, they'll be needing a person to play Milky White the cow, and I intend to be there.
Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.
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Brotherly Love
"Yoh, I'm sorry." My younger brother sat at the kitchen table sipping a cold mug of coffee. I hadn't been aware that he actually liked coffee.
"Good for you. Now, leave me alone." My otouto snapped.
"Yoh, will you listen to me? I'm trying to tell you that I'm not having an affair with your wife!" My blood was positively boiling. He didn't believe me at all. I stood, moving about the room in a sort of pacing motion, trying to find a way to explain.
"So, how long has this been going on behind my back, brother?" He spit at me, stressing the word 'brother' in a way that implied he thought that I would be above sleeping with his wife just because of our blood connection.
"Nothing has been going on behind your back. Today was the only time we've ever done anything even remotely like that. We were talking and things got out of hand is all. Do you realize that while you're away on business trips for months at a time, she's alone here? She's lonely Yoh! She feels neglected!" I stopped in mid yell when I noticed the look in his eyes. He wasn't mad. He was hurt. A pathetic wounded animal.
"I know Hao. I know that I'm a horrible husband, leaving her like that, but there's no way around it. I've been trying to be better about it, but there is only so much one person can do. I understand why Anna would do something like this; it's my fault for not being there for her. I accept that it's my fault, and I'm going to have to deal with the consequences. I'm trying to patch things up with her. What I don't understand is why you're doing this to me. How could you betray me like that aniki? Is this some kind of twisted revenge for when I slept with Ivy?"
His words cut me. I hadn't thought of it like that before. I had betrayed him…and I didn't know why.
My little brother continued. "You're not still mad about that are you? I thought that you said you forgave me, and I really am sorry Hao. And she wanted me to you anyway, the whole time, honest. I'm sorry, just please don't take my wife away from me." Tears ran down his cheeks unchecked as he begged me. "I'll do whatever it takes, whatever you want, just please leave Anna alone; I don't want to lose her."
I slowly walked back over to the table and looked down at my sobbing little brother. "Stop it. I'm not…I'm not mad at you Yoh. I haven't been for a long time now. Truthfully, I don't know why I got involved with Anna. I was just going to kiss her to tease her, but…then….I don't know…I…I don't really remember much up until you walked in on us. My body just sort of took over. I wasn't thinking., I swear, or I never would have done anything to her. I'm the one who should be apologizing, Yoh. You haven't done anything wrong, and the way I backstabbed you…I feel awful about it. It was just some spur of the moment thing, and we were just about to stop right when you walked in too…Anna would never turn on you like that Yoh, she loves you. She's just lonely that all. I'm sorry." I could only hope he would forgive me.
"Oh, is that all. Okay then, I guess it's all right if it doesn't happen again. I'd have to seriously hurt you then Onii-chan." A lazy grin returned to my little brother's face.
His smile was contagious, and I couldn't help but return it. "Thanks for understanding. I swear never to touch your wife again." I was about to stand and leave, but then I couldn't resist adding something. "Just make sure to keep your hands off of my Ivy too."
Yoh gulped and smiled nervously. "Sure thing bro. Speaking of which, you'd better go patch things up with her. She saw more than I did, and she seemed pretty mad. She might not be as reasonable as I was."
"Yeah…Hey…what's that smell?" I sniffed the air lightly.
"What smell?" Yoh gulped again.
"Alcohol." I barely whispered back to him. My little brother smelled like bar. "Yoh, where exactly did you go after you left us in the kitchen?" I leered down my nose at my otouto. I could smell the hard liquor on his breath.
"Um…nowhere." He lied, smiling sheepishly.
He wasn't drunk, so he obviously hadn't had much, but it was the principal of the thing. "Yoh…" My voice was a warning; he had better fess up right then and there. I didn't want my only brother to end up like me.
"Fine, but I only had a half a glass. I don't know how you drink the stuff Hao, it's nasty! I thought that maybe if it worked for you, it would work for me, but have to say, it was pretty disgusting, and I don't feel any better about myself at all…in fact, I think I feel worse." My cute little brother grinned widely at me, not looking half as bad as he claimed to feel.
"Promise me that you won't drink anymore." I demanded.
He nodded and looked up at me with innocent eyes. "I promise. Besides, it's no fun anyway. Don't you feel better now that you haven't been drinking for a few months?"
I smiled back at him and nodded. "You're right. I do feel better." I made my way to the doorway again, on my way to Ivy's/Valerie's room to apologize. I stopped half way to the door to look back at my twin. "Um…Anna is probably going to kill me for telling you, but I think that you have the right to know that…well…Anna's pregnant, Yoh."
I turned again to leave, but was yet again halted, this time by my other half's voice. "You lying bastard…" He seethed, ready to kill me.
I whipped around, immediately wishing that I hadn't seen my brother's face. There was hate, and above all, murder in his eyes. He wanted me dead, and he wanted to do it with his own hands. I couldn't imagine why he was acting so hostile. 'All I told him was that his wife was preg—Oh shit.'
"Yoh, that's not what I meant! With your child, not mine!" I backed away slowly, afraid for my life.
"What?" My other half cocked his head to the side, looking infinitely cute. The emotion drained from his eyes, so much like my own, and the two chocolate orbs were filled with confusion. "But I've barely seen her at all these past couple months, let alone…how could she be…with my…" He halted his speech, unable to come up with enough fragmented sentences to go on.
"She's three months pregnant." I supplied. "So, sometime around February? You really need to spend more time with your wife Yoh. But you know, I do too, so I'm going to go speak with Ivy and clear this mess up." I walked off, leaving my shorthaired counter part to work it out on his own.
"Thanks aniki." Yoh smiled at my retreating back, and I waved a hand to silence his thanks. I had done nothing to deserve any kind of thanking from him.
I walked up to Ivy's door and knocked. "Valerie? We need to talk."
"I'm not home." Her tear-laced voice answered.
"Please? Give me a chance?" Silence. I tried another tactic. "At least let me apologize."
"Apology accepted; now leave me alone." She was being as stubborn as ever.
"Come on Val, you and I both know that I'm going to stand here bugging you until you let me in, now it would be a lot faster if you just open the door now sooner than later." I tried my best to sound logical. She knew me well enough to know that I was determined.
The door opened wide enough for me to see her red, tear-stained eyes glowing in the dark. The lights were off in the room, and I couldn't see anything else. The door slammed in my face just as I was about to step in.
"Leave me alone Asakura." Things were never going well if she called me by my surname. "I've already accepted your apology, and I don't care to hear anything else you care to say. You'll just have to accept the fact that even if I accepted your apology, I'm still mad at you. Now, go away." The door relocked and I could here a soft thud and the rustling of water as she collapsed again upon her waterbed.
"Fine, if you want to be that way, I have no choice but to do this." I teleported inside her room and flicked on the lights.
She glared at me, not bothering to get up off the bed. "Don't you ever give up?"
"You know very well that I don't." I slunk over to her bedside and made myself comfortable lying next to her. "I want to talk to you about what you saw going on between me and Anna."
I paused for a moment to give her a chance to hit me, ridicule me, or pretty much do whatever she pleased. She remained silent, closing her eyes and training her ears in on the sound of my voice.
"What exactly did you see?" I gently inquired.
"Just you and her making out and you taking off her dress. I left after that. I have no interest in your secret love life." Her voice wasn't cold like her sister's, but it wasn't warm like her usual tone either.
"Yoh walked in on that part too. Nothing more happened. It was just a spur of the moment mistake…you know how lonely Anna gets? Yoh's never around, but she still wants to feel loved. It's not all that different from what you do with Yoh." Her eyes snapped open. She was reacting exactly like I had hoped.
"How did you know? Who told you? It was Yoh wasn't it. Does Anna know about this!" Fear was evident in her voice. She didn't' want to cause any further rifts in her sister's marriage, but it seemed as if she was causing them anyway.
"You just told me." Her face dropped. "It was only a suspicion before, but now that you've confirmed it…"
She propped herself up on an elbow, glaring down at me. "I swear, if you tell her I'll—"
I swept her elbow out from under her, knocking out her only support beam. She fell forward on top of me and I caught her with a kiss. I pulled back and smiled at her. "It's okay, no one needs to know. Do you understand now?"
"Yes, I believe I do." Her voice returned to its normal mellow tone, not too hot and not too cold. "Please just don't do it again. My heart can only take so much before it breaks." She rolled over on her back again and closed her eyes.
"I promise I won't just as long as you quit having your little flings with Yoh. My heart can only take so much too." I smiled as she smiled.
"I promise. Now, go to your own room. I'm really sick, and I don't want you catching anything." Ivy gently nudged me to get off the bed.
I opened my mouth to tell her I knew who she really was, but looking down at her, I realized it wasn't really a good time for such things. 'She'll tell me when she's ready.' I repeated this mantra in my head and left through the door that conjoined our rooms. "Good night, and sweet dreams."
"Night Hao. Love you." She smiled weakly at me as I left.
She looked close to death, but I put that thought out of my head quickly since the dead cannot die again. Unfortunately the thoughts of her lying dead followed me into my dreams. It really was too early to go to bed, only around eight o'clock at night, but I was tired from the taxing day, and I easily slipped into the land of dreams. I slept poorly since all of my dreams were nightmares brought on by the sight of Ivy lying on her bed looking to be at death's door.
My little brother was on the ground and before he could jump to his feet I had my sword at his throat. Yoh sighed and smiled slightly up at me, accepting his defeat gracefully. "Promise me that you'll take good care of both Anna and Ivy."
"Don't worry about them." I would take care of both women. I raised my sword to stab Yoh right through the heart. Yoh just lay there and smiled sadly at his fate.
"No…" Anna sunk to her knees and started to sob quietly.
"YOH!" Ivy yelled, her face contorted in utter horror. She had never wanted us to fight over her; she wanted peace. She rushed towards us, stepping the way of my downward plunging blade. It was too late to call off the attack once I realized what was going on. It was too late to save her. Blood went everywhere. I didn't know her body even contained that much blood.
My eyes widened in terror, and my grip on the sword handle went slack. I couldn't feel anything but the warm blood splattering over everything. My brain, body, and eyes were not cooperating, so I lost all orientation. I could only stand there looking stupid. My hands shook, and I slowly let the hilt of the sword roll out of my hand.
Ivy caught the hilt as it fell out of my hand, and she held it steady so that it didn't move and worsen the wound. She cringed as her own blood smeared all over her hands. She evaluated the damage that the sword had done, but she didn't look scared at all by the steady stream of her own blood escaping her body. The sword had gone right through her chest and was sticking out the other side. 'It's a fatal would.' I heard her thought, but she decided not to voice it in case it would upset me. I don't think I could have been any more upset at that moment than I already was. I had killed her.
She looked back up at me, no one emotion too heavily shining in her eyes. "You know, if we took the sword out, statistics show that a normal person could hold on to life for at least fifteen minutes more. I'm guessing a shaman would have longer. I'd say about twenty or twenty-five." She stopped for a moment, looking shaky and pale, like she might pass out at any moment. She placed a hand on my shoulder for support.
My mouth and my brain finally found a connection, and apologies started leaking from my mouth. "Ivy…I'm so sorry! I didn't want to lose you, so I thought that if I killed him that you would be able to love me again. I love you…I didn't mean for you to suffer while waiting for death to come. I didn't want to lose you…I'm so sorry…can you forgive me! I love you…"
I felt like crying as she smiled at me. "It's okay. It's my fault. I shouldn't have…well I shouldn't have done a lot of things. There were a lot of things that you shouldn't have done too, but I don't think that either of us should be held accountable for anything that we've done. It really is everyone's fault, so there's no use blaming anyone. I forgive you if you forgive me."
"Of course." I could only summon a few words, not fully trusting my voice.
"I'm not suffering, by the way." She diverted her eyes away from me. "You didn't hit the lungs, and you missed my heart. I'll have twenty or so minutes as soon as I get this out of my chest. I can pull it out without making the wound worse." She drew in a breath and held it as she pulled the sword from her chest. She lay the weapon down on the ground, but it proved to be too much effort for her, and she collapsed.
"IVY!" The whole group of my brother's friends rushed forward to see what they could do. I rushed to get her in my arms, bumping heads with my brother on the way. He had had the same idea as I did. We glared and growled softly at each other before silently compromising to rest her in both of our arms.
I sat dazed as she said her last good-byes to the group. She persuaded Yoh to marry Anna since Ivy was close to death anyway. My brother and she exchanged gushy words and a last kiss before he stood, transferring her solely into my embrace.
She snuggled up against me and stared up into my eyes. I looked back down at her longingly, stroking her cheek and brushing away stray hairs. I couldn't believe that this was the last time that I would hold her like that
My mouth automatically broke the silence, blubbering something gushy. "After all this time…All of those times that you said that I had 'killed you' back when you were mad at me…I finally have. I've finally murdered you."
"I've murdered myself. You only helped me. I gave up my life the minute I was born. There was no avoiding this. I am but the embodiment of sorrow and suffering. I was doomed from birth to be miserable. Don't blame yourself." She smiled gently, not seeming to mind the pain. She cringed slightly as she coughed, disgusted at the sight of her own blood coming up.
"I'm so sorry for everything Ivy…I love you. Please don't leave me!" I ignored the blood staining my clothes and held her anyway. I loved her and I was losing her.
"Hao…you of all people should know that I can't help it. I'm not long for this world. I don't want to die, but there's nothing I can do about it." She barely managed a weak smile. She was trying to be brave for me.
"I'll never see you again…" The thought hit me like a ten-ton anchor. "I just know that you'll get into Heaven, and once you're there you'll never be able to come back here. Ivy…you're not like me…when I die, I don't get to go to Heaven. I'll never see you again…I can't live without you…I love you…" The pain was unbearable, I didn't even bother hiding the tears.
"True that we'll never see each other again, but…what if, in your next life you become a saint then die and go to Heaven? Sure it'll take another hundred or so years, but…I'll be there in Heaven still…you can see me then." Her words were just an empty attempt to comfort me. There was no hope of ever seeing her once she went to Heaven.
"You and I both know that that won't work." Suddenly an idea struck me. "When I become Shaman King I'll resurrect you!"
"No Hao." Her voice was firm although her body was weak. "Don't bring me back. It's time for me to die. I'm going on to the next life, and that's final. I'm so sorry…I couldn't live as a ghost. I don't think I could bare being around live people and not being able to interact with them like I could if I was still alive…I'm sorry…it's for the best." She closed her eyes and tried to keep breathing. I could tell it was getting harder just by the agonizing look of pain on her face. She was struggling to hold on.
"Ivy!" 'Please don't leave me!'
Her eyes snapped open and she looked quizzically at me, "What?"
"How are you doing? It doesn't hurt too much does it!" Yoh looked worriedly at her.
She somehow managed another superficial smile and a lie. "It doesn't hurt at all. Death isn't so bad. I really don't feel any pain at all…the real pain is the pain you feel for the people you're leaving behind. Death isn't really as terrible as people make it out to be…right Hao?" She smirked at me, repeating the words I had spouted to her earlier when she asked me what death was like.
"Right…death itself isn't so bad. The pain comes from knowing the one you thought you could trust murdered you…God, I'm sorry Ivy…" My will to live was disappearing right along with her.
"Don't say that. I want you to go on living Hao. I'll never forgive you if you kill yourself." I tried to protest, but she cut me off with more force than I knew she still had in her. "Find another girl to love…no whores though. I want you to be happy. Try to be happy. Promise me that you'll be happy." She waited for my response, but all she got was silence. "SAY IT."
"I promise that I'll be happy." My reply was mechanical at best. There was no point in living without her. Then regret overtook me, "If I had my powers I could heal you…I feel so helpless Ivy…I can't save you. I feel like a wimpy human…I'm suppose to be the most powerful Shaman ever, but look at me. I can't even save the woman I love…"
She winced again as the life drained from her body. "Goodbye everyone…thank you so much for everything. Anna…goodbye sis. Yoh…I love you. Take care of my sister; make her happy." Her final good-byes. This was it. She looked up at me, saving me for last. "Oh Hao…"
"One last kiss?" I tried to rein in my tears, but the ignored my efforts, and kept flowing anyway.
"One last kiss." She smiled as I kissed her goodbye "I love you, Hao…" Her last words. She died with my name on her lips. She snuggled up against me and closed her eyes. A peaceful smile painted her bright red lips and she died. That smile would haunt my dreams for years upon years to come.
"Wake up!"
I tossed and turned in my sleep as I was haunted by visions of her lying dead in my arms. That smile…her blood red lips matched the warm blood spewing from the wound I had inflicted on her. I was covered in a cold sweat, and shivers raced freely up and down my spine.
"Wake up!" Someone was shaking me.
The visions kept coming, refusing to release me from there amorous hold. It seemed nothing could free me from my twisted dream world.
"For god sakes, Hao! Get out of bed and WAKE! UP!" I collapsed on the floor as the annoying voice pushed me out of bed.
My eyes snapped open and I immediately started to feel the pain. The first thing I saw was a pretty girl with shoulder-blade long coffee-colored hair. The room was dark, so I couldn't make out her dark brown eyes. "Judo." I mumbled, sitting up and rubbing my sore head.
"Nice to see you too lover boy." The impish persona of my late wife grinned widely. "I still can't believe you still have that same nightmare almost twenty years afterward. You'd think that you would have gotten over it by now." I batted at her, trying to hit her, but she jumped back just in time to avoid my hand. "Guess not." The ten-year old child pulled an orange out of thin air, and took a seat on an invisible wall.
"What do you want Judo?" I grumbled as I stood and got back in bed. I quickly checked my digital clock on my nightstand. "It's one o'clock in the morning."
"I know. Isn't it a wonderful hour to be up and about?" Her smile sickened me. I glared at her, but didn't say anything. "Would you like an orange?" She smiled. I glared.
"Nope. I want to know what you're doing here this late at night." I pulled the covers over my head and tried to pretend she wasn't there.
She yanked my covers away and got in bed next to me, stealing most of the cover for herself. She used my chest as a pillow and made herself at home. "It's scary in there." She motioned toward the door to Valerie's room.
"What do you mean?" I put an arm around her and gently smoothed her hair.
"Anna and Faust are in there trying to move our soul into a new body. The old body is deteriorating and we're getting really sick. Faust and Anna made the new body and they're doing the operation right now." Judo mumbled to me softly, falling asleep. "But…something's wrong…the new body is rejecting our soul for some reason. I don't know, but it hurts a lot. I had to get out of there, so I came in here where you would protect me."
The meaning of her words didn't settle into my head right away. "How can I protect you? And how are you so sure that I will help?"
"You can protect me because I think you can. There's no real danger; it's only a mental think. I feel safe when I'm with you, so as long as you're with me, I think I'm safe. It's a comfort issue." She paused to glance up at me for a quick second. She looked away and giggled. I raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't say anything. "And I know that you'll help me because you think I'm adorable." She tilted her head upward again and smiled.
For the briefest of seconds I saw Ivy smiling at me. I sat up, forcing Judo up as well since she was resting on my chest.
"What!" The flustered little shaman furrowed her brow at me, upset at having been disturbed.
"Shh. Listen." It was a faint noise, but I swear I heard something.
Judo only managed to stay quiet for a few seconds before she started up her yakking once again. "It sounds like a woman crying…or wailing…or screaming in agonizing pain…" She paused and looked objectively at the door connecting my room to Valerie's. "It sounds like it's coming from there."
I did sound like a woman crying out in pain. "Ivy…" I breathed. I bolted from bed and was at the door in milliseconds.
"Wait!" Judo was faster somehow blocking my way into the other room.
"What!" I didn't appreciate her intervening.
"You can't go in there! Ivy can't know that you know that she's Valerie! Anna and Faust can't know either. Hoshi can know though since she already knows that Valerie is her mom, but if you go in there, you'll see things!" The little shrimp of my wife looked up at me with terror in her eyes. "Horrible things! A body-soul exchange isn't pretty at all, and you won't like it. That's why I left. That and the pain, but it's really awful, Hao. Please don't go?"
"But Ivy…" I started to argue.
"She won't look anything like Ivy, Hao. The body is decomposing, she's just a skeletal frame covered by patches of rotting flesh. It would be worse than watching her die! And the new body doesn't look anything like your wife either. She's got long silvery-blonde hair, and dark blue eyes, and the face structuring is all wrong, and she's really pale. Since the soul isn't in the body yet, it just looks like a dead body. Don't go, you won't like it at all. It's not like you could help or anything." She looked up at me and batted her pretty brown eyes.
"Fine, have it your way…" I returned to the bed and sat on the edge. Judo followed close behind. "What exactly is going on in there anyway? Could you give it to me in steps?"
"Sure!" Judo smiled happily, more than happy to provide me with any info I wanted. "Well, you know how Val has been looking really sick and acting really ill lately? Well, it's because her body is shutting down and she needs a brand new one. Usually the bodies only last a couple days at most, but it's really weird, she's been able to keep using the same one for a couple months now without any problems. I suppose something had to happen and it had to break down sometime, but still….Anyway, what you do when switching the bodies is you have the patient strapped down to one bed, and you strap the new body down for another. You have t' strap 'em down 'cause when you rip the soul from one body and force it into the next it's really painful, and the bodies both wriggle and toss and turn and move around an awful lot. Faust usually does all the operating mostly, but Anna needs to be there to help and supervise and stuff. Hoshi is helping tonight too. She wants to be a doctor; did you know that? I think it's really cool. I really like Hoshi; she's neat."
Judo kept rambling about something and I just nodded, not really devoting my full and undivided attention to her. In truth, I hadn't known that Hoshi wanted to be a doctor. Sure she had mentioned it when she was little a time or two, but I hadn't known that she still wanted a medical profession. 'That just goes to show how little you actually know about your own children.'
"…so then once he's done cutting all that up, Faust reaches in and rips the soul out of the decomposing body. The body turns to dust after the soul is out since it's only a Jiang-si corpse, and then Faust pushes the soul into the new body. I really can't imagine why this body won't accept our soul….it's so weird."
All of the sudden the screaming stopped and the house was silent. I looked toward Judo for an answer. The Tao girl shrugged. With a quick flick of my wrist a small orb of fire showing what was going on in the next room appeared, floating over the bed.
Faust and Hoshi stood over the new body, inspecting it. Anna sat on the opposite side of the bed looking sour-faced down at the body that her sister's soul should have been inhabiting. Valerie herself looked rather downtrodden as she stared at the body lying strapped to the bed.
"So what are we going to do?" Hoshi blinked twice as she studied the faces surrounding her.
No one answered.
Anna shifted her attention from the lifeless lump on the bed to a dark corner of the room where a small red orb of light was floating just off the floorboards. "What do you think Ivy?"
The little ball of light flickered uncertainly at Anna before transforming into the ghostly form of my young wife. "What do I think about what Onee-chan?"
"Pay attention." Anna rolled her eyes, throwing the beaded bracelet from her wrist at her younger sister.
Ivy flinched as the Itako beads went right through her. "Hey!" she whined. The brunette sat down in the corner sulking childishly.
My heart skipped a beat. It had been so long since I had seen her…Sure I had been living with Valerie for several months now, but I hadn't actually seen Ivy in years…since she died.
"I think what Ivy means to say is that she doesn't have a formed opinion on the subject matter." Valerie stepped in for Ivy and replied even more mechanically than I had remembered her being.
"Maybe if we….No." Hoshi muttered, surveying the body.
"What?" Faust looked curiously at my eldest child.
A bunch of medical gibberish came flooding out of my daughter's mouth. "Well, I was thinking that if we made an incision next to the (some word I can only guess is a body part) and go in through the (some technical sounding noun), we could extract the (I'm not sure I could pronounce the word if you paid me), and insert the (?). Then it would just be a matter of performing a (some difficult sounding medical procedure thingy…)." Hoshi paused for a minute and no one spoke. The blonde necromancer stared wide-eyed at the girl in shock. Hoshi looked down and muttered. "It wouldn't work, would it?" She didn't even wait for an answer. "That's what I thought."
"A-actually…" Faust blinked several times and looked at my child in awe. "…that's medical genius. How did you ever think up something like that; you're only seventeen!"
"Sixteen…actually. I read a lot of books…I really want to be a doctor." As if she had just realized the momentum of the German's words, she looked up and smiled giddily at him. "You really think it's genius! Will it work!"
He smiled kindly at the short brunette. "Of course it will work, and you'll make a magnificent doctor one day; wouldn't she Eliza?" The blonde nurse smiled warmly and nodded with a maternal air. Faust turned his attention back to Hoshi after a loving look to his wife. "Would you like to help with the procedure Miss Hoshi?"
"REALLY? That would be… I mean… YES!" The older of my twins was like a child let loose in a toy store. For once she truly seemed happy. She put her hair up and pulled on a set of gloves.
Anna rolled her eyes and instinctively rested her hand on her stomach while watching the surgery.
Valerie seemed uninterested in what was going on with the body, so she walked over to make small talk with her other self. Ivy still sat in the corner twiddling her fingers and playing with strands of hair. Valerie looked down at Ivy with disinterest. "It'll take awhile before they need our soul."
"My soul. Not yours." Ivy glared up at the shallowest facet of herself. "I won't need you around much longer."
"Sorry, how could I have forgotten…yes, your soul…yours and Judo's." The silver-haired chemist didn't seem to mind Ivy's bitter tone at all. "Speaking of, where is she? Shouldn't she be here with the two of us as well?"
The Kyôyama girl scanned the room for any sign of the Tao. Ivy got to her feet and her brow furrowed in deep thought. "That's right…I have no idea where she…went…" Ivy's gaze caught on the door to my room. "…to."
Valerie chanced a glance at Ivy. "Do you want to go retrieve her or should I?"
"I'll go." Ivy gulped and straightened her ghostly clothing as she approached my door.
Back in my room, Judo scrambled off of my bed and sat down on her invisible wall. She pulled out an orange to eat and motioned for me to get rid of the spying device I had made out of one of my fireballs. "Pretend to be asleep!" She hissed quietly to me.
I did as she told, darting to get under the covers just as the door opened and Ivy peaked her head in. "Judo?" Ivy softly cooed.
Judo looked over her shoulder at the door. "Yes?" The mischievous Tao child smiled at her older half.
Ivy motioned for Judo to come back in the room. Judo shook her head and motioned for Ivy to come into my room. Ivy shook her head and repeated her emphatic gesture. Judo gestured back just as over dramatically, and soon forced Ivy into my bedroom. Ivy rolled her eyes and looked down her nose at the ten year-old.
"What?" The elder of the two looked suspiciously at her younger image.
"Nothing." Judo directed an impish grin at Ivy as the Kyôyama took a look around the room.
"Nothing my foot. Why did you want me in here? You're going to wake him." Ivy spoke in hushed tones, clearly fooled by my charade.
"I'm not going to wake him." Judo insisted.
"What are you doing in here in the first place?" Ivy took a seat on the invisible wall.
"Watching." Judo's smile grew larger.
"Watching?" Ivy raised an eyebrow. Her dark eyes looked lovely as ever as far as I could tell opening my eyes just a crack so I could see her.
"Watching him sleep." The younger finished. "He's so cute."
Ivy cast me, what she thought Judo might interpret as an uninterested glance. "I suppose." She tried not to look back at me, but she couldn't help a second glance. The second became a third, and the third became a longing stare.
"You miss him." Judo smirked, secretly making Ivy play into her hand.
"I do." My wife admitted cautiously. "What of it?"
"Nothing…" Judo smirked.
"Nothing?" Ivy checked.
"Maybe it's not nothing." Judo offered.
"I thought so." Ivy smiled smugly.
"You know, you could wake him up right now, and you could tell him, and you two could be happy." Judo was trying to get her to confess.
"No Judo." Ivy's voice was soaked with pain. "It would be against Anna's plan."
"Which plan? What do you know of this supposed plan that your sister has? She hasn't told you a thing, but you still follow her blindly. I'll never understand you. If it were me, I would tell him no matter what Anna said. You love him and you miss him, and you want him back so badly it hurts. You want to get back together with him…" Judo was waiting for Ivy to say something, a certain word or a particular phrase, but it didn't look like Ivy was going to be saying anything at all. "Come on Ivy…why not listen to me this once? You could keep it from Anna so that she would never know and she could have her little plan, but you could still have your man…Ivy?"
Ivy got up off the wall and sat down next to me. The bed didn't even shift as she sat because of her weightlessness. She gently stroked my cheek and stifled tears. "He used to stay up late just staring at me. I hated it. It made me feel so self-conscious. I got so mad at him when he did it…I never understood why he would want to stare at me for hours on end… Judo…I think I understand now." She placed a light kiss on my lips and stood, walking toward the door. "I'm giving up Judo. From this moment on I'm giving up. It's not worth it anymore."
Judo rose as soon as she was out of the room. The girl sat down beside me on the bed. I sat up and we stared at each other and the door for several minutes before actually saying anything. "What did she mean by that?"
Judo cocked her head to the side. "I'm sure I've got no idea…I have no idea what's going on in that head of hers. She has way too many voices in there, and as I've said before, it's scary in there. I wouldn't want to be the main personality…not if I had to go through all that she does." The Tao smiled weakly and kissed both of my cheeks lightly. "Night Hao. Get some rest 'cause tomorrow's bound to be weird…" She winked teasingly at me and disappeared.
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Thanks to: Addi-Lee, yo wuz up, knux33, LisaTheHedgehog, Andrea Nefisto, HAO-Addictive, MaiValentinefan, IvyAsakura13, Touch of the Wind, and Dannie.
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