Gale-Dragon: Hey people, here's chapter 2. I only own the Owner, his wife, and the Heartless Killers.
Reading
'Damn, what a day,' Gin thought as he ran down an alleyway. 'That Person' sent him on a solo hit mission and target had a meeting with some business men that saw him and called security on him. Lucky the security cops haven't been able to catch him, yet. Gin managed to hightail it out of the building in time, but they were still on him. Gin quickly turned the corner of the ally, he saw a door, and quickly opened it and closed it behind him as quickly and quietly as possible.
Gin kept quiet as he waited for the outside to cool down. As soon as the noise outside calm down, he gave a sigh of relief. Gin gave a look around his safe-house and concluded that it was a fortune telling shop. 'Not what I expected for a safe-house, but it did its job,' Gin thought still looking around. There were a lot of fortune telling stuff that you can buy, and a curtain that leads to the back.
"Ah, Gin, right on…" said a male voice that came out of nowhere, but before he could finish his sentence, the owner of the voice had a gun to his head, it was the owner of the shop. "…Time. Gin, would you please put that away?" the Owner said staring down the barrel of the gun.
Gin kept the gun at the Owner's head and said: "How do you know my name?"
The Owner smiled and replied, "I knew you were coming, but I do suggest that you put that gun away."
Gin clicked the gun and said "Why should I?" as soon as Gin finished his sentence; a scythe suddenly gleamed at his throat.
"Shoot him and I take your head clean off," said a woman's voice that came from behind Gin.
"And I think the Mrs. means it," the Owner said with a small smile. Gin knew that neither was kidding as he felt the scythe pressing its cool steel frame on his throat. Gin slowly returned his faithful gun into his hidden holster; the scythe was removed from Gin's throat. "Good, now, shall we do your reading now?" the Owner asked in a friendly manner. Gin gave him an odd look.
"What makes you think I want my fortune to read?" Gin asked as he watched the Owner walk to the curtain.
The Owner halted and looked at Gin with a smile and said "The guards that were chasing you are still outside looking for you, and it's a good way to kill time," Gin just stared at the Owner. The woman walked towards the Owner. Gin was shocked by the scars on the woman's face and that she was a head taller than him, but she had no scythe in her hands. Gin quickly looked behind him to find no scythe anywhere, that's too weird. Gin walked to the window and pulled the curtains open, just enough for his eye to look through, and the fortune teller was right; the guards were still out there. 'Damn, wait, how did that guy know I was being chased?' Gin thought to move away from the window. Gin looked at the fortune teller and his 'wife', who were both smiling.
Gin walked to the curtain and said "Fine, but I'm just killing time, nothing more," the Owner smiled and said, "It's fine, and you needn't worry about your payment, a nice man has already covered your tab."
Gin stopped and asked, "Who's the benefactor?"
The Owner shrugged and said "I don't know he was wearing a hooded winter sweater, big sunglasses, and a scarf that covered his face. I thought it was quite queer (1) since it's the middle of summer," Gin knew that either the strange man was making the whole thing up, or was telling the truth. 'I can understand about hiding your identity, but wearing winter wear in summer, that's asking for heat stroke,' Gin thought as he sat down in a plain wooden chair.
The Owner sat at the opposite end of the table after placing a crystal ball on the table, while the Mrs. sat behind Gin; it wasn't too hard to figure out why.
"Now shall we continue?" the Owner asked Gin. Gin just nodded. The Owner smiled and said "Exultant, now cast an eyeball (2) into the crystal ball," If the Owner hadn't pointed at the glittering orb, Gin wouldn't have to know what the Owner was talking about. 'What century is this guy living in?' Gin thought as he looked in the orb. The Owner smiled, "Technically it's not a century, and it's the 50's slang,"
Gin's eyes widened on that note 'What is he a mind reader or something?'
The Owner smiled again "A mind reader would be accurate, as well as being a seer," Ok, now Gin was interested. "Did you really think I was just a cube (3) trying to con people out of their money?" Gin just stared with his eyes still wide. "What's a cube?" Gin asked and he got a reply saying "A cube means a normal person." Gin just stared at the Owner and thought 'This guy is stuck in the wrong timeframe,' The Owner frowned 'Right, he can hear what I'm thinking, that's a pain.'
"That depends," The Owner said with a smile. Gin frowned 'Wonder if that scar faced lady can read minds?' Gin thought.
"What did you call me?" asked the woman behind Gin.
Gin jumped at that 'Damn, she can,' Gin felt the woman smirked at him.
"Any who, let's get to the reading," the Owner said with a smile. Gin went along with the whole thing.
Images appeared in the Orb, they were fuzzy at first, but then they got clear. "Let's see, ah, here we are," the Owner said waving his hands around the orb. The image was bloody red. "Oh my, not a good way to start off a reading," the Owner said as the images turned into a boy with silver blond hair tied to a wooden chair, tears staining his cheeks, and his green eyes were puffy red. 'This is…!' Gin thought with his eyes wide. Gin knew the boy; it was him as a child!
"Heartless Killer Hades isn't one of the most pleasant Heartless Killers to run into, ne?" the owner said looking at the dark shadow in the orb with glowing blood red eyes that appeared in front the boy, holding a blood covered knife that was at least 30cm (about an inch). "He took your dear older sister from you, as well as made you one of his witnesses, didn't he?" The Owner said looking at Gin. The shadow wiped the blood off the knife and then tucked it away some were, the shadow stood up holding a jar with a human heart in it and walked out of the image, leaving the little boy in the image in tears again.
"He did," Gin said looking away from the crystal ball "He kept me tied to that chair as he killed her, while she was still awake, and when he called the police he was looking right at me and smiled when he said 'You better hurry and free the little boy before he ends up crying tears of blood' he hung up the phone, walked by me and said 'Have a happy life, little boy,' he laughed as he left my house, the only thing I could do was look at my dead sister's bloody body and cry," Gin said as tears threatened to emerge from his eyes. The Owner said nothing as Gin wiped his eyes.
"Heartless Killer Hades is quite a devil, leaving a witness as young as you were to his 'occupation', but he could have done worse," the Owner said holding a tarot card with the symbol XVI on it as well as a picture of a devil on it, that seemed to appear out of nowhere, as Gin glared at him thinking 'How?' the Owner looked back at his orb and said: "He could have defiled her corpse in front of you."
'That's a good point,' Gin thought to look back at the Orb, which now had an image of Gin in the present.
"Apparently after her death the organization you work for finding you a new purpose in life, in other people's eyes that purpose isn't a good one," the Owner said looking at the orb.
Gin was confused 'What did he mean by 'other people's eyes'?' The Owner looked at him.
The Owner then said "Personally we don't judge people by their appearance or background, we just help them make figure out what their future is, speaking of which you're going to have a cute little girl soon in the Organization," Gin just stared at the Owner, who went back at looking at the crystal ball.
"What?" Was the only thing Gin could say, then thought 'What the hell is he talking about?'
The Owner smiled and said "Good question, but I'll let you find out on your own."
'Gee that's helpful,' Gin thought sarcastically.
"What the?" The Owner said as the ball turned crimson red and then deep black. "Is this thing on the fritz?" the Owner said as he tapped on the orb. "Well guess we're done, the security that was chasing you are gone, and this *points at the crystal ball* isn't cooperating with me, you may leave," The Owner said as he stood up, Gin did the same, as well as the Mrs. All three left the little reading room.
As Gin opened the door to the outside, he paused and looked at the Owner and his wife and asked: "How could you know exactly what was going on in the past, present, and future when you don't even know who's paying for it?"
The two knew what he was talking about and smiled, and the Owner said: "Your benefactor apparently doesn't want you to know who they are, that's all."
Gin frowned 'you're basically saying that you know who it is, but you won't tell me,' he thought as he was leaving the fortune telling shop.
"That is plausible," The Owner said with a smile as Gin closed the door with a frown.
Gin managed to get back to the room he shared with Vodka after submitting his report, minus the Fortune Teller and wife, after a long ride back. "Damn what a day," Gin muttered. 'Was my visit to those weirdoes even real?' Gin thought to wonder if that shop was even real 'I mean come on, both of them could read my mind, or was I talking out loud? No, I couldn't have said all those things out loud.' Gin rubbed his head. He was thinking about that way too much.
"Hey, Aniki," Vodka said as he walked in with a plastic bag.
Gin just looked at Vodka and said: "What's in the bag?" Somehow Vodka wasn't too surprised about the other's response.
"Some snacks thought you might be hungry after your mission," Vodka said pulling out a snack bag and tossed it towards Gin, who caught it easily with his left hand.
'Now that I think about it,' Gin's stomach growled a bit and said "Thanks, Vodka," as he opened the bag. Vodka nodded a welcome.
"Did anything interesting happen on your mission?" Vodka asked as he pulled out a snack bag for himself. Gin didn't say anything right away.
"No, nothing really happened," Gin finally before he popped the snack into his mouth. Vodka shrugged and he too started eating his snack.
"You better not have your feet on my reading table," The Owner said as he and his wife headed towards the back, as they entered the back they saw a man with messy jet black hair, black outfit, black nail polish, and bloody red eyes twirling with the Devil card on its edges that the Owner showed Gin during his reading while sitting at one of the wooden chairs.
"Come on, you really think I'd do something like that to a real psychic's reading table," the man in black said to the Owner.
The Owner folded his arms and frowned "Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Well I'm not, none of us are," The shadow said still twirling the Devil card on the table by its edges.
"You mind telling us why you are interested in one of your witnesses?" The Mrs. asked the dark man.
"It's because that time the victim was the witness while the witness was the victim, right Heartless Killer Hades?" the Owner said without a hint of emotion.
The man in black smirked as he looked at the Owner while still twirling the card "How'd you figure that out?" Hades asked the Owner, the smirk not leaving his face.
"The fact that you killed Hikari while she was awake gave it away, you always knock out your victims before you kill them," the Owner said. Hades' smirk never faded.
Hades stopped twirling the card and let it fall back on the table face up. "About time someone finally realized it," Hades said leaning back in the chair. "I suppose you two know why I'm here," Hades said not really caring if he was answered or not.
"The Heartless Killers require my services, again,this'll" The Owner said as his wife glared at Hades.
"You got it," Hades said with a toothy smile. Hades held out his hand and a swirl of darkness appeared around it. He pulled his hand out of the shroud and with his hand was a scroll with golden handles.
"I do bthat'llkeep you in our serves for quite some time," Hades said handing the scroll to the Owner. As soon as the Owner received the scroll, he opened the scroll, as he did his eyes widen.
"How where you able to keep such an old document looking and feeling so new?" the Owner asked the dark one. The Mrs. looked over her husband's shoulder to look at the scroll, and her eyes widened as well.
Hades smirked and said in a tone of fake surprisement "What? Don't tell me you've never seen a completely original suiboku (4) by the father of Japanese ink painting, Josetsu (5)?" The two glared at Hades. Hades ignored the glares from them and said in a sickly polite voice "I do believe that the scroll is worth quite a lot, considering that it's in perfect condition."
The two glared at Hades. The Owner closed his eyes and said "You're right, this will keep me in the Heartless Killer's service for a long time," Hades smirked while the Mrs. snapped her head to her mate. She looked at him for a while and viscera. The Mrs. sighed.
"All right, but I have a question," She said directly towards Hades.
"Ask away, Killi," Hades said motioning his hand in saying 'on with it'.
The Mrs., Killi asked "Why do you need Oricono's seering abilities when you have Apollo?"
Hades smirked and said "Oricono isn't redundant, so he'll give people the information he sees," as he placed a card on the table. "Gin and Vodka's cell phone numbers are on the card, call Gin when you see something about him, and call Vodka when you see something on him, all right?"
"Understood," the Owner, Oricono, said as he took the card off the table.
"Good," Hades said before literally vanishing into thin air.
"Hard to tell whether the Heartless Killers are thinking," Killi said as Oricono pocketed the card and rolled up the scroll carefully.
"I must agree with that, they do know I don't have a cell phone?" Oricono said walking to the table with the crystal ball mirroring the image of the Devil card.
"I suppose you can use the pay phone to call them," Killi suggested.
"Those I know how to use," Oricono said removing his hood that has been covering his hair since the beginning of the story, to revel mossy green hair that was probable long, but was hidden under his robs.
"I wonder why the crystal ball went black." Killi said looking at the orb. Oricono shrugged and said it may be reveled in the future.
The lights went out in the shop.
(1): Queer- 50's Queen's English for 'weird'
(2): Cast an eyeball- 50's slang for 'look here'
(3): Cube- 50's slang for 'ordinary person'
(4): Suiboku is Japanese for ink and wash painting.
(5): Josetsu (1405–1423): one of the first suiboku style Zen Japanese painters in the Muromachi Period (15th century). A Chinese immigrant, he was naturalized in 1370 and is known as 'the father of Japanese ink painting'. The best known of his paintings belongs to Taizo-in, a sub temple of Myoshinji in Kyoto, which is entitled 'Catching a Catfish with a Gourd' (c.1413). (6)
(6): Got this information from wiki/Josetsu.
Gale-Dragon: Chappy two is finished, and the story Tarot is completed. Review please.