Fubuki Tenjoin was mad.
He could tolerate being blatantly ignored, called a jabbering idiot, and any combination of the two, but when he was kicked out of his own dorm room...THEN he would take the abuse no longer and put a foot forward. It was actually Manjyome who had thrown him out, his reasons being that Fubuki was causing too much obliteration and not enough purification or some batshitted reason like that. But Fubuki knew that Manjyome would have never done such a thing without the influence of the carpman.
'Carpman' was the name he had lovingly donned Saiou Takuma with. After all, Saiou looked like a carp, talked like a carp (if carp actually talked), and walked like a carp so what could be a better insult than one on his physical features? Anyway, who did that Saiou fellow think he was? First beating his love pupil in a duel, then forcing Manjyome to do the dirty work and convert the rest of the Obelisk dorm white, in addition to making him paint the Obelisk dorms white as well!
Fubuki never blamed Manjyome for any of this, not even when after the black-haired boy had beaten his cute little sister in a duel and converted Asuka as well. It had been Saiou's fault for mind-raping everybody closest to Fubuki and forcing them to join his ridiculous cult/kessha/whatever it was. Now there was only one thing to do—eliminate the heart of all the darkness.
Or light. This was technically the correct term anyhow.
Fubuki was on a quest to kill Saiou Takuma and he knew just the two people who could help him with it.
"Fubuki! You're up and early this morning!"
It was so rare to see Fubuki clad in his normal blue and white academia uniform these days rather than the flashy, colorful Hawaiian shirt he constantly wore. The blond surfer wasn't carrying his ukulele either and he had an unusually serious expression on his visage as he turned to face the two second-years.
"Listen, Juudai and Shou, there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Mah? We're having breakfast right now-su," Shou pointed out. Juudai was too busy slurping down his own porridge to agree.
"Well, listen anyway!" Fubuki snapped. "It's about Saiou…"
Brown eyes widened and Juudai spit out his porridge at the sound of his name. Shou glared at him on the other side of the table and gingerly wiped the mixture of gruel and saliva off his face. Juudai seemed to ignore this and instead jumped off the bench and stood up, pointing a finger at the ceiling in a pseudo-Fubuki way.
"He's a greedy, manipulative person who uses others for his own selfish needs! I don't like him whatsoever!" Juudai shouted angrily.
"Yeah, I don't like him either!" Fubuki cheered wholeheartedly. He was glad that somebody had the same beliefs that he did. "This is why Saiou must be stopped once and for all."
"I agree with you too, Fubuki-san…" Shou stiffly replied. He sounded less enthusiastic because he was too busy cleaning himself off.
Fubuki grinned. He huddled closer to the two boys and lowered his voice to share the details of his deranged ideas with them.
"Great, because here's what we do—we ambush him, tie him to a stake and burn him. Then I want to do something with steaming hot coals, knives, and bazookas but I haven't gotten to that stage of the plan yet."
It was obvious neither Juudai nor Shou understood a word he said. (That or they were purposely ignoring all the sadistic traces of his 'plan.')
"Err…actually, I was just talking about a duel," Juudai finally replied bemusedly.
Fubuki gaped at him as if he was crazy.
Juudai blinked innocently and held up the palms of his hands. "What? Well, it worked all those other times." He shrugged.
"I know, but, I mean…come on!" Fubuki urged. "The man is out to destroy mankind as we know it! Do you really think he's going to stop his freaky world domination jig because of a mere card game?"
"Manjyome-kun's brothers did…" Shou piped up in a squeaky voice. Fubuki rounded towards him with a menacing stare. "Eep."
Juudai sighed and knocked his knees together, ogling his porridge with sad eyes.
"When the time comes, I'll rip Saiou apart in a duel," he stated in a soft, yet firm voice. Fubuki nodded understandingly.
"Yeah, Aniki, you will…" Shou encouraged.
A gentle grin broke out on the brunette's face.
"But in the meanwhile, as long as Asuka and Manjyome are safe and out of harms way, we should just sit back and relax." Juudai shook his head when Fubuki looked as if he was going to interrupt. "I hate to say it, but there's nothing else we can do."
"Can't you at least try to talk some sense into my sister? Or Manjyome?" Fubuki pleaded desperately.
Despite looking worried, Juudai shrugged again. "They won't listen to me anymore. But at least they're not doing any crazy stunts or getting hurt," he reasoned.
"Saiou's using them as sex slaves!"
It was Shou's turn to spit out his porridge upon hearing Fubuki's assertion, though Juudai wasn't nearly affected as Shou had been when the porridge was spit out on him. The Osiris Red was too busy staring at his upperclassman to realize that half of his face and hair was covered in a white, soupy mixture.
"Wait. What's 'sex'?" Juudai asked blankly.
"…"
Fubuki made a mental note to seek out somebody who possessed more intelligence than a rock.
Daichi Misawa was sitting in his room with just him and his deck this morning. He was busy brewing up new card tactics for his earth-attribute deck when a hard knock came at the door. He glanced up from his cards as another round of knocks pounded on the wood.
"Eh? Who could that be?"
Moments later, he opened the door, blinking in a rather curious manner when he saw Fubuki standing at his doorstep.
"Uh…hello," he welcomed oddly. "What brings you here?"
Despite being on friendly terms with the boy, they didn't have much of a closely-knit relationship and Misawa found it rather peculiar that Fubuki would just suddenly appear in front of his room, alone, with a distressed look on his face. Of all things, wouldn't it make more sense for him to go to Juudai or Asuka when personal troubles arose?
Fubuki didn't reply to his greeting and instead stepped into the room.
"Do you still write formulas all over your walls…?"
Misawa closed the door and glanced around to see Fubuki inspecting his bedroom walls with a grave expression that just didn't suit him.
"Yeah, it's just a bad habit I can't get rid of, heh," Misawa replied awkwardly and laughed a bit to soften up the dramatic atmosphere. "So…err…how are things on your end of the stick?"
"Fine, I suppose." Fubuki suddenly looked at him. "Hey, can I ask you for a favor?"
He tilted his head. "Uh…sure. What is it?"
"Can you formulate a plan to serve Saiou Takuma's head on a silver platter?"
"…eh?"
"I have a bazooka in my room if you need one," Fubuki added barefacedly. "I was thinking about slicing open his body with some knives and drawing out his intestines to insert burning coals into his stomach, but those are just my ideas."
Misawa gawked at him before his common sense clicked back in and he remembered it was not polite to gawk at other people. He coughed heavily into his fist and looked away instead.
"…I, err, uh, I don't formulate illegal murder plans, not even for my friends…sorry."
But Fubuki refused to give up so easily. The mild, calm side of him suddenly vanished and was replaced with an obsessive-compulsive personality most people dread seeing. He grabbed the bewildered Misawa by the shoulders and shook him crazily.
"But this isn't just anybody we're talking about here!" Fubuki shouted frantically. "I'm speaking of killing Saiou, the crazy rhino-dude who's attempting to turn everybody in the academia white!"
Misawa frowned. "…he hasn't attempted to do that with me yet."
This seemed to insert some logic back into Fubuki's brain. He let go of the gray-haired boy and stood back, scratching his cheek sheepishly. "Ah…everybody in Obelisk Blue, I mean."
Misawa drew back stiffly as well, his eyes growing icy. "I see," he replied coolly. "So this is only an Obelisk thing, obviously not meant for a Ra Yellow like myself."
Fubuki blinked, finding the mistake in his words a split second too late. He shook his hands in front of him and resisted the urge to headwall himself. "No, that's not what I mean! I mean, you're fine, really, just, argh…"
He headwalled anyway.
Seeing that the third-year had not purposely tried to insult him and was currently hurting himself in the process, Misawa found the sympathy in his heart to forgive Fubuki.
"I'm sorry, but there is nothing I can do to help you. If you want to commit messy homicide, why don't you ask somebody with brawns rather than brains?" Misawa paused. "Kenzan is skipping stones down at the beach. Why don't you visit him?"
Without another word, Fubuki's head left the wall and he swept out of the room, his white trenchcoat billowing in the sudden gust as the door slammed behind him. Misawa raised an eyebrow before returning to his duel monster cards.
"…he hates white, yet he's wearing a heck lot of it…"
Skip. Skip. Skip.
"Woo-hoo! This one is a winner for sure!"
Skip. Skip…skip.
"Come, come on! Just a little farther-saurus!"
…skip…skip. Plop.
"HOO-RAH! 17 skips and I don't know how far that went but that sure looks far, da' don!"
Kenzan howled in triumph and pumped his fists into the air, doing a little victory dance in the process. He finally managed to beat his old record in skipping stones and was in the mood to extend his newest record even farther. He felt rather giddy as squatted down on his thighs and rummaged around in the sand for another stone to toss. Kenzan didn't notice anybody coming until he laid eyes on a very oddly shaped black stone.
He prodded it gently. "Eh? This is a weird-looking stone."
"That's my foot, thanks."
Kenzan immediately glanced up, recognizing that voice. "Fubuki-sempai?"
"Hello, Kenzan-kun." Before Kenzan could say anything, Fubuki jumped straight to the point by extending his arms and shouting, "You're a strong guy, right? Will YOU help me wipe out Vulture-boy's existence forever and ever?"
Kenzan wrinkled his nose and got up from the sandy ground. "Huh? Care to fill me in on what's going on-saurus?"
"I need somebody with muscles to beat Saiou Takuma into a pulp," Fubuki explained decisively. "Then we can tie him to a stake and burn him with gasoline acquired from the academia's kitchen!"
"…uh, what?"
Kenzan found this so disturbing he forgot to add the habitual –saurus suffix to the end of his sentence.
"Afterwards, we can slit open his abdomen, draw out his intestines and fill his guts with hot coal. And then we'll drown him or shoot him with a gun, which ever comes first," Fubuki ended shamelessly.
Kenzan stared at him for a moment longer before closing his eyes and sighing a literal mushroom cloud. He looked up again and scratched the back of his head uncomfortably.
"Look, you crazy 'saurus. I dislike Saiou as much as you, but planning to maim and kill him isn't really gonna do anything, ya know."
Fubuki puffed his chest out. "Well, it would make me feel better!" he defended.
Kenzan frowned. "Yeah…well imagine how all the white Obelisks would feel when their leader is killed-saurus."
"They won't care! They'll revert back to being normal and Obelisk Blue will go back to being Obelisk Blue instead of Obelisk White!"
It took a little while for the dino-boy to absorb Fubuki's outlandish proclamation. He opened his mouth as if to say something contradictory to his words, but then closed it. A few more uncomfortable seconds passed. Kenzan opened his mouth again.
"Isn't Obelisk White Manjyome's fault? I mean, wasn't HE the one who painted the dorms white, beat everybody in duels, and converted them into Hikari no Kessha members, da' don?" he asked, a befuddled expression on his face.
"Saiou brainwashed him to do that!"
"How?"
"By beating him in a duel!"
"Saiou beat me in a duel and I'm not brainwashed," Kenzan pointed out before adding in, "…saurus."
Brainwashed-saurus.
"…"
Fubuki could find no way to argue with that.
"Kenzan thinks too much…" he muttered darkly under his breath as Fubuki trod his way through the campus to reach the Obelisk White dorms. "Cause destruction and THEN question the motives…yeah, that's how it should be done!"
Now that he had contacted all his non-white friends only to find them unwilling to lend a hand, the blond surfer had no other choice but to turn to somebody who was working for the man he sought to destroy. Preposterous as it may seem, Fubuki was desperate for help. There was one final option—pleading with his sister.
And Fubuki had only come to this conclusion because Manjyome had attempted to stab his eyes out the last time he and White Thunder had a talk.
She was probably in her room, he realized. He was probably not allowed into the female dorms as an obvious alpha male either, but since when have the rules ever constricted Fubuki Tenjoin? Fubuki tried his best to avoid any converted female students and/or Napoleon as he wandered through the hallways. After half an hour of walking into random rooms filled with towel-clad girls and being eerily stared at, Fubuki was standing in front of what he thought to be Asuka's room. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Luckily for him, Asuka opened it. However, Fubuki was cut off before he could utter a sound.
"Hello, good-for-nothing brother of mine," she stated emotionlessly. "I thought Manjyome-kun kicked you out."
"…"
Asuka raised an eyebrow.
"…"
Fubuki looked as if he was about to burst from holding his breath for such a long time.
"…"
Not wanting her brother to pass out from the lack of oxygen in his lungs and then being responsible to clean up the mess, Asuka sighed and opened the door wider for him to pass through.
"Alright, alright. You can come in just this once…" she invited exasperatedly and motioned for him to follow her into her room.
Fubuki let go of his breath and strode in, not bothering to shut the door behind him. Once Asuka had gone and shut the door, she turned around to shoot a glare at him. She crossed her arms, staring expectantly at her older sibling.
"Now. What do you want?"
He swallowed a bit, trying to phrase his words in the least offending manner possible.
"…let's say…hypothetically there was this…hypothetical guy and he hypothetically ran a hypothetical pseudo-religion organization dedicated to hypothetically brainwashing people…"
Asuka heard enough. She brought her hand to his face and flicked him in the nose.
"Ow! Asuka…"
"If this has anything to do with Saiou-sama forcing us to join the Hikari no Kessha, I don't want to hear it."
Fubuki clutched his nose with both hands and stared at his younger sister, flabbergasted. How in the world was she able to figure out what he was talking about when he cleverly disguised all traces of true intentions by using the word 'hypothetically' at least half a dozen times?
"You weren't being very subtle about it," she replied tonelessly as if she had read his thoughts.
He needed to learn how to play mind games. "I wasn't?"
"No, you weren't," she stated firmly. Asuka placed a hand on her hip and leaned into it, closing both eyes in an exhausted manner. "And just so we get things cleared up, Saiou-sama is not a Japanese Hitler…"
Fubuki blinked. "Who's Hitler?"
"…he does not want to turn his followers into sex slaves…"
"Ah-ha."
"…he doesn't want me or Manjyome-kun to mate and bear babies…I would probably refuse anyway…" she included in with an afterthought.
"Err…"
"…he does not like rum…" Asuka continued in her weary voice. "…it is a vile drink…"
"What's rum?"
"…he's not a vampire/rhino/vulture/carp/Frankenstein-crossbreed or anything of the sort…"
He raised a feeble finger. "Are you sure—?"
"…he uses Herbal Essences in his hair…"
Fubuki touched a strand of his own fruit fusion-smelling hair.
"…and last but not least…" She opened both eyes to stare seriously at her brother, putting extreme emphasis on her final words. "…the Hikari no Kessha is not a cult."
"But—"
Asuka cut him off. "I repeat: it is not a cult."
"Still—"
"NOT. A. CULT."
"Asuka!" he yelled, raising his voice so she would finally listen to him. Fubuki backed away a few steps. "I know the Hikari no Kessha is not a cult! I never said it was a cult!"
Upon hearing this, Asuka calmed down and sighed in relief. Her brother was finally catching on.
"Alright, oniisan," she replied in a considerably lighter, more tender voice. "I think I'm ready to talk to you now that we know you're not going to ramble about how the Kessha is a cult…"
"…because it's not a cult," Fubuki pointed out meekly.
A gentle smile graced Asuka's lips.
"It's a harem."
Her smile froze.
"…AND NEVER COME BACK TO THE DORMS AGAIN!"
Fubuki scrambled out of the Obelisk white dorms with his arms wrapped over his head to prevent any brain injury from all the books, shoes, and shampoo bottles that were being thrown at him by his younger sister.
He continued sprinting even after he knew Asuka was no longer chasing him for it was a natural instinct to run when he was being bombarded by hair-care materials. His well-toned legs carried him farther and farther away from the dorms. Fubuki didn't know where he was running to, but he found himself automatically heading towards the place he and his best friend always went together when he was still a first-year at the academia—the pier.
Fubuki didn't arrive at the ocean's edge late enough for the lighthouse to function yet, but the sun was just about to dip below the horizon when he took his first steps on the wooden planks. Fubuki looked down, averting his gaze from the sun's dim rays. All he wanted now was life to return back to normal. None of this crazy white light stuff, no new transfer students materializing in every other day or assassins chasing Juudai for duels…he just wanted the world to stop so maybe he could jump off. Fubuki had sought everybody he knew for help and none of them could provide him with any.
"This sucks," he grumbled to nobody.
His only reply was the waves crashing against the planks of the pier.
"Who else is there to turn to? Everybody I know in the academia has been bleached white, the rest of the school thinks I'm mental, Ryou has gone leather bondage on our asses, and I think all that hair gel has finally leaked through my sister's skull!"
Fubuki clutched his head and yelled angrily to release some of his frustration.
"Hey, will you quiet down there?" an irritated voice suddenly came from his far left. "Some of us would like to enjoy the ocean view without insane blondes like you messing up the atmosphere."
Fubuki opened his eyes and glanced curiously to his side to see none other than the pro-league duelist Edo Phoenix sitting on the edge of the pier and drinking from a tall bottle. Inspiration suddenly struck Fubuki.
" Edo!" he shouted, running towards the silver-haired boy and stopping in front of him. Upon hearing his name being called, Edo flicked open one eye and gazed at him in inquisitiveness.
"Eh…who are you? You're one of Juudai-sempai's buddies, aren't you?"
"Never mind that now," Fubuki replied hastily. "You used to work for Saiou so you would know dirt about him, right? Like his weakness and stuff?"
Edo blinked.
"…uh…actually…"
Fubuki ignored his uncertainty.
"Can you help me destroy him? I want to get my old friends back…not to mention my love pupil and my sister…"
"Ah, no."
"…my sister's best friends…"
"Hey. I said no."
"…my fans…"
"Let go of my arm! I said no already!" Edo cried in a tetchy voice and wrenched his arm out Fubuki's clingy grasp. Apparently somewhere through his ramblings, Fubuki had accidentally clutched onto Edo's arm for unconscious comfort.
Fubuki drew back, misunderstanding lining his expression. "But why?"
Edo looked thoroughly violated and brushed his suit off. "Listen. Don't get me wrong—Saiou's a complete bastard in my book, but the man is far too strong to be physically stopped."
He saw that Fubuki was going to object and quickly injected with, "Or mentally, if you want to go with that."
Fubuki closed his mouth.
"…"
"He has guards and about a hundred henchmen working under him."
"…"
"The white dorms are rigged with sensors and anti-entry devices. Care to throw your life away on an electrical fence?"
It took a few seconds for these words to sink in. With a weighted sigh, Fubuki plopped down on the wooden planks next to the silver-haired boy.
"I give up," he renounced tiredly. "There's just no way to stop the dude, is there?"
Edo shrugged and his gaze returned to the ocean view.
"I don't see why you're asking me, I'm not his personal caretaker," he replied causally. "He used to be my manager, yes, but those times are over. He threw me away like a rag doll to run that Kessha of his."
He frowned and began toying with the neck of his bottle. Another heavy sigh from Fubuki echoed next to him.
"So what are you doing here anyway?" Fubuki asked bleakly.
Edo took another swing of his bottle. "Disaster protocol 405b for stress removal: An English tea party."
Bewildered, Fubuki checked the bottle's label. "But that's not tea…"
"Yeah, well, Japan doesn't exactly sell the tea I normally drink so I had to resort to sake instead," he replied wryly. Edo held up the bottle and shook it slightly, nodding. "Good stuff though."
"…you're too young to be drinking alcohol."
"Maybe."
A grin broke out on Edo's face.
"Want some?"
Saiou Takuma was busy with the tremendous amount of paperwork that had to be filled out in order for his Kessha to function properly. He had until 5:45 to finish all the forms on his desk which, stacked up together, was towering slightly above his chin height. He frowned down on the latest form in front of him and pressed the tip of his pen to his tongue before jotting some words onto the paper.
"Dammit!" came a badly concealed mutter from the other side of the room.
Saiou didn't even need to glance up to understand what was happening. Apparently, his second-in-command had received a bad papercut for being careless.
"Manjyome-kun, hush down," replied Asuka's firm voice. "You're going to disturb Saiou-sama from his work."
"Yes, yes, I'll be quiet…"
And that was the end of that tête-à-tête as silence filled the room yet again.
Saiou tried focusing his attention onto his work, but found himself unable to concentrate. Honestly, who knew everything would be so quiet around here? He felt no hesitation about converting everybody into his society but if it meant all his followers were going to be mute zombies, he might as well install a boombox in every one of the Obelisk white dorm rooms.
A knock came at the door.
From the other corner of the room, Manjyome immediately rose up. "I'll get it—"
"—no need, I'm the closest to the door," Saiou reassured the black-haired boy and insisted on having Manjyome return to his seat.
Saiou swiftly dislodged himself from his own chair and strode over to the entrance of the room. Normally, he would never answer the door if he could help it, but he had ordered a package a few weeks back. Something told Saiou that today was the day it was shipped over to the academia, and when it pulled in, he wanted to receive it personally. (He had been expecting his karaoke machine to arrive any day now.)
Saiou swung open the door.
What he had not being expecting was to see a third-year Obelisk with dark brown hair and a very inebriated expression on his face meandering around, doing the drunken man dance right outside of his office. In Fubuki's loose clutches was a completely drained sake bottle which he was waving around quite hysterically.
Saiou's mouth parted slightly and a slim eyebrow went up.
"Hello. What brings a lovely lad like you here?" he asked courteously, hiding any and all bemused confusion under a placid smile.
Glazed golden eyes turned to his direction and Fubuki's normally handsome face lit up in crazed lunacy as he recognized the man he yearned to kill.
"YOU. Carpman!"
"…"
"I have come here to destroy you! So prepare to fight, carpman!"
Despite Fubuki's loud declaration of war, Saiou remained in the same spot. He didn't doubt Fubuki would hit him with the sake bottle he was waving chaotically around; it was merely that Saiou had some self-confidence in his own physical strength—not to mention he had metal bolts screwed into his head and that no quantity of glass could break his skull open.
Right he was. Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Fubuki sought to smash down the sake bottle on his head. But due to his drunken aim and the fact Saiou had calmly tilted his head to the right the glass bottle hit his shoulder instead and shattered harmlessly on his right shoulder blade.
About a second later, Manjyome's head popped out to see what all the commotion was about.
"What's with all the ruckus, Saiou-sama? Is somebody troubling y—oh, it's him."
Brushing the pieces of broken glass off his uniform, Saiou stood to the side and allowed Manjyome to walk through and eye the drunken Fubuki with a wary glare.
"Manjyome-san, please escort this gentleman here to the infirmary," Saiou requested in a polite tone of voice, glancing awkwardly at Fubuki who had now began to sing on the top of his lungs. "He must have accidentally wandered here in his intoxicated state."
"Of course, Saiou-sama."
Wordlessly, Manjyome grabbed Fubuki's wrists and hauled him away to the nurse's office. Asuka peeked out the door and stared after the retreating forms of the two boys. She pointed to the taller one with the white trenchcoat billowing in his wake.
"Is that my ne'er-do-well brother that Manjyome-kun's carrying off?" she asked confusedly.
"Is he now?" Saiou answered in mock surprise, closing the door and returning back to his desk. "The boy seemed rather angry at me for some reason or the other."
Asuka shook her head in shame. "He just doesn't get it. He hates you and thinks you're crazy."
A smirk graced Saiou's lips.
"Yes, the way he was acting, you'd think he spends his spare time inventing plots to kill me…"
