Seeing the Sun

Chapter SOMETHING

Jo's Past

Part 4: The Story that left a Scar

"Where to begin..."

A four-year old Jo sits on the curb, smirking just a bit to herself. She's pretty sure she's broken a record, getting in trouble on her first day of pre-school. She's pretty much beaten up a first grader, a fact that made her proud more than anything else. Granted, her nose was bleeding, but she could take it.

The boy had had the gall to make fun of her silver hair and red eyes. Both of which happened to be not only inherited from her parents, but traits she was quite proud of. She liked the fact that her eyes would unnerve anyone, even some grown ups. Luckily for her, she seemed to have inherited great fighting abilities from her parents.

Jo's mother walks out, balancing her purse and a small bundle in her arms as she smiles at her oldest daughter. Jo stands, immediately taking her baby sister, Maria, and holding her. She's only a few months old at this point,and Jo already liked her. Even though she was just a baby, Maria was almost as quiet as Jo was, and had the same calm eyes as her mother.

Jo herself looked a lot like her mother. Both of them had long silver hair (her fathers' was lighter, like Maria's), although hers was a bit messier. Her skin tone was the same, too. Jo almost had her face exactly, except she had her fathers eyes. The eyes that were focused in what seemed like a glare that made people nervous, even if it was coming from a four year old.

"We better get going," Jo hears her mother say as she plays a bit with her little sister. "I heard that your dad is almost blowing up the house, or something like that."

Jo nods, cradling Maria against her chest as they walk to the car. The baby clumsily plays with Jo's long hair, making the normally stoic little girl smile a bit.

When they get there, the house is still intact. They can hear barking, though, and Jo hands Maria to her mother as she rushes to see what's going on. What she finds when she gets there is her big, tough, father... chasing a hyperactive puppy.

It's a pit-bull, and the only reason she knows it's a puppy is because it seems oddly clumsy. It's paws and head seem almost too big for it's body, which seems to have grown quite fast making the animal powerful, but awkward in movement. Jo can't help but laugh at the sight of her exhausted dad, and the animal turns it's own crimson gaze to her.

It stops running immediately, causing Jo's dad to trip over it. Interested in this new discovery, Jo gestures it towards her. The dog walks towards her, it's own personal equivalent of a grin on it's face. Seeing that it's listening to her, Jo smiles.

She just got a new dog.

"Jo, are you okay?" asks the younger girl, handing Jo her scarf. The same yellow, too-long scarf she had given Jo on her birthday.

Hearing Maria say this, Jo just grins. Ever since that first fight, she's constantly had some sort of bandage, some sort of injury to deal with. But she was getting better at fighting, no matter what anyone said. Her parents actually encouraged it, congratulating her on each fight won, though her principal seemed to think otherwise.

Jo's father was a fighter, too, though that wasn't his main occupation. She knew full well that he sometimes went on some... other errands for his company, NTNW, but that was because his boss commanded him to. Other than that, he was just a scientist. They had been trying to breed the perfect dog, and her own dog, Kannibal, had been the first success. He was like a guard dog, a normal pet, and a preforming pet at the same time. His coat seemed to stay clean no matter what, the silver of his collar showing in contrast to the dark black of his fur. It was predicted that he would live at least three times the amount that an average dog would live, something Jo was endlessly grateful for.

Ah, but I digress. Jo did what she did every time her sister asked her that question. Grin still intact, she retaliates. "Of course I'm fine. I'm Jo." As if to convince the non-believer of the fact, she picks up the younger girl, the single eight-year old carrying the girl half her age slung over her shoulder. Laughing, Maria playfully hits her back.

"Put me down!"

"This is what happens to non-believers, Maria."

Of course, since this is Jo we're talking about, problem arise.

She didn't know how, or why, but suddenly the floors, the walls of the dark alley all have some trace of blood on them. The gun falls from her grip- the clumsy grip of a ten-year old. She stares at the mangled body, not understanding how she could've done that. Did she do it? She couldn't have. It wasn't her.

Was it?

No, she wasn't a killer. She was fucking ten years old for crying out loud. She fought, sure, but that was just for fun. She would never kill someone. But what if it were for self-defense? But then, couldn't she have knocked him out? Surely she wouldn't have killed him. But he was trying to rob her. She was too confused. Had he been trying to rob her? No, it had been worse, hadn't it?
Her father walks in, seeming to asses the situation rather quickly. He picks up the gun, wiping the finger-prints off with a rag and carefully placing it in the criminal's hand. He then takes his daughter's hand in his own, and starts to walk with her. Ruffling her hair, he starts talking.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

She didn't?
"You just have to learn to control it."

And...

"I'll teach you, Jo. Come on."

That wasn't even the bad part.

Yes, the man teaching his ten-year old daughter how to kill a person (or how to viciously beat them until they gave her what they wanted) was not the problem. It was when Jo was thirteen that he started to act strangely. Coming back from work, his eyes would appear glassy, and he would be unfocused. Jo's mother would try talking to him, but he would remain that way until dinner. Then he would act like nothing had happened, eating and talking normally.

It was disturbing.

So Jo knew something was wrong when Maria came into the room. Jo took out the headphones she had plugged in to her miniature TV, looking at her little sister with poorly hidden curiosity. It's then that she notices that she can hear her parents screaming at eachother. They're yelling in rapid Japanese, which Jo would normally understand. Unfortunately, she can't make out what they're saying since they're words are fast, interweaving with eachother's shouts.

"Jo, they're fighting."

That's what makes Jo act. She gets up, telling Maria to lie down and either watch TV or sleep. She quietly creeps towards the door, opening it just a bit. They're still yelling, and before she can look she hears a horribly familiar sound. The sound of someone readying their gun. A sound she'd heard before and a sound she herself had made.

She whips open the door, hearing someone yell "NO!". She recognizes it as her voice. She's frozen as She sees her mother's body fall to the ground, blood spilling over her chest and onto the floor, staining the white tile.

She's not in control of her own actions as she runs over to her father, who has a sort of crazed look to his eyes. She delivers a kick to his chest, followed by several powerful and fast jabs to his stomach. Taking his gun, the headbutts him, the sheer force of the rage-filled attack knocking him down.

But as she presses the barrel of the gun to his head, she hesitates.

Something she was told to never, ever do.

"You're breaking one of the rules," her father murmurs, still insane. "Care to recite them?"

"Never hesitate," Jo says, arm shaking. "Never show fear. And never scream."

"And why?"

"Because-"

Her father gets up, rolling out from in front of his daughter and seeming to disappear. He reappears behind her, however, hitting a certain spot in her neck. Her knees give out, eyes closing as she fails to kill the man who raised her. He picks her up, carrying her to the basement. Setting her on to the metal table, he picks up a knife. Then, he finishes her sentence.

"Because then they win."

The pain is so agonizing that she wishes she'd shot herself with the gun she'd been holding.

She can still see- she regained consciousness when he'd begun cutting the strange pattern into her skin, and she feels a sickening tugging sensation followed by more pain. She can't find it in herself to scream, her teachings burned into her mind. She can see the silhouette of her father in front of the lights that burn her eyes. She can feel needles shooting something into her bloodstream- something to keep her awake during this... whatever this is.

Suddenly, her arm is burning, and she can hear screaming. It's when her father covers her mouth that she realizes it was her own voice, calling out in agonizing pain. Suddenly, something is cooling her arm to the point of pain, and she is left lying on the table. Her father- no, the monster before her- sticks a needle into her arm. Before she's knocked unconscious, she hears something.

"Now Jo, don't scream. You wouldn't want Maria to worry, would you?"

Where is she?

It's definitely not her bed- it would never be so uncomfortable or cold. She opens her eyes, only to close them immediately. There's a stinging pain in her arm. This kind of reminds her of a hospital. She gets up, careful not to move too much. Then her eyes widen.

She smells blood.

She looks around, wondering what the source is. Could someone have hurt her family? No, that wouldn't be right. She then sighs in realization, realizing it's her blood. Looking down, however, she gasps at the sight of her arm.

Black markings, traveling over skin, the source of her pain. A flood of memories hits her like a ton of bricks. Her mother, killed because her father had wanted to use Jo for an experiment of NTNW's. Maria, crying, in her room. Her own hesitation that led to her scars. But wait... Maria.

She runs up the stares, kicking the door down. She runs too fast to notice that the door is now charred, falling to ashes. As she opens the door to Maria's room, she sees a small lump under the blankets. The red-stained blankets. The color of new blood. Slowly, wondering if this is a nightmare, she pulls away the ruined sheets.

Maria is there, a pattern of her own etched into her skin with a knife, skin peeled away and cut off where he started his stupid experiment. Her eyes are open, still lost in the pain of what she went through in her last moments. Her mouth, too, is open in a scream. The blood is fresh, this having happened only recently.

Jo can't even summon tears to her eyes. She picks up the corpse of her little sister, carrying her as if she were a baby again, unable to walk on her own. She walks almost mechanically to the door, walking a ways down the hill that their house stands upon and rests Maria's body there. Before she starts digging six feet underground, she hears a voice.

"She was getting braver," her father says. "Acting more like you. She was almost your clone, towards the end, with the way she threatened me. So I thought," he's right behind Jo. "I figured she would survive. My bad. Maybe Kannibal could've stopped it, if he hadn't run away."

Kannibal, the collar of which is in her father's hand. Jo turns, kicking him with all her might and grabbing the collar at the same time. Those words triggered a horrible type of rage, she knows. She sees the light around her swirl, making everything seem to fall out of focus. She pockets the collar, flames overtaking her arms as she walks towards her father, whom she had kicked into the house.

She grabs him by the neck. This is not her father anymore, she decides. Her grip, she knows, is burning into his skin, killing him slowly. He instinctively delivers a sharp blow to her stomach, but it has no effect. Her gaze is cold and unforgiving, the eyes of a killer.

Her father's eyes.

The house seems to fall apart around them, burning to the ground. Jo can't help but be relieved that she got Maria's body out. Of course, her relief is lost in a sea of endless hate and rage as she slams the man who destroyed her life against the wall. By his breathing, and the way he carries himself, she knows he's dying.

His body is nothing but ash by the time she's done, along with the rest of the house. The dirt is stained gray,all the grass either covered by the ashes or burned by her fire. Maria's body is hidden, though where it is is forever burned (pun not intended) in Jo's mind. Saying her final goodbyes to her little sister, she starts walking away.

She doesn't know where she's going to go. Probably Japan, since she knows the language there. She doesn't want to be in America anymore, that's for sure. As she walks, she knows that all that happened is really all NTNW's fault. It was their experiment. She didn't know what had happened to her father, but she would find out eventually.

Wherever she goes, she will destroy Neuro-Tech Nano Works.

A/N: NTNW is from the manga, in case you're wondering.