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Episode 1 Part 2
Kasumi woke feeling better than she had in weeks. The dreams that had plagued her sleep had been noticeably absent that night. Giving a brief thought of thanks to the kami, she rose from her bed and began her morning routine. It wasn't until she had started preparing breakfast that she noticed that she had been moving faster than normal that morning, and was a good ten minutes ahead of schedule. Shrugging it off as unimportant, she continued to stir the morning pot of Miso soup. It would be good to get ahead on the chores if she wanted to free up time for the training Dr. Tofu wanted to talk about today. Their talk the day before had been taken up with a discussion of what had happened, and today he was going to tell her what was to be done about it.
Not that she was really upset. This was the most exciting thing that had happened since that Kuno boy had made his little speech last year. At least this had happened when she was almost done with her promise. In just a few short years Akane would graduate, and she could start a life of her own. Go to school herself, marry a nice man, and after a few years have children of her own. She had plenty of practice at least.
A soft ping to her left let her know the rice was prepared, and after checking that everything was ready she went upstairs to drag Nabiki out of bed again. It was a shame her alarm couldn't always manage it. 'Oh well, at least it is one more time I get to see her without her mask on.'
Knocking firmly on her sister's door generated no response, so she opened the door and went inside. One glance at the bed showed that her sister had already woken up and left the room. 'Thats odd, I never heard her come in for coffee. I wonder what happened.' Kasumi mused to herself.
Putting that thought to one side for the moment, she continued down the hall to Akane's room. Her knock resulted in a quick "Changing!" from her sister.
"Thats fine Akane, I just wanted to tell you that breakfast is ready. Would you please tell Father and Nabiki for me, she wasn't in her room. I need to get back to the food or I would look for her myself." Kasumi waited long enough to hear the "Okay!" through the door before she turned and headed back downstairs.
Breakfast itself was fast; with Nabiki still missing and Akane eating quickly so she would not be late to school. Nabiki's absence was a little worrying, but she knew from the handbook that vampires couldn't come inside unless invited. This meant she was probably just meeting with her friends early that day. It had happened before, but usually she left a note for Kasumi so as not to worry her. Nabiki didn't know about the vampires, but she did know how to read people. She would probably spot them and know to run.
Distracted by her thoughts she didn't notice Akane leaving for school. Her routine of cleaning up after breakfast was disturbed twice by a broken dish before she remembered to focus on what she was doing. It would seem there was a down side to the whole slayer strength thing. When she finished she looked at the clock and nodded in satisfaction It was time to get ready for the first day of training. After packing a set of workout clothes into a small bag she headed out. As she left she called to her father in the other room, "I'm going to be gone for the morning father, I left you some lunch in the refrigerator." Her only reply a grunt, she left for Dr. Tofu's clinic.
Dr. Tofu had converted his storage room into the training area. Not as spacious as a dojo would be, but it would be big enough for one-on-one training. The hard part would be keeping his receptionist from finding out what was going on. Granted she was usually busy with patients, but one slow day at the wrong time could out the Slayer, and that simply was not to be allowed. Everything he had seen in the council's journals and records stated that an exposed slayer was not long for this world. A watcher who allowed this to happen was dismissed from service and the slayer relocated.
In many cases the potential slayer was removed from the parents and trained in secret. This practice, while not universal, showed a marked increase in projected lifespan and effectiveness of the slayers it was used on. It had, in fact, been concidered in Kasumi's case. Shortly after she was identified as a potential however, her mother died of a degenerative illness. It was decided that for the mental health of the potential, removal from the home was not advisable at that time. Dr. Tofu had therefore been assigned to watch the family from a remove in case she was activated.
She had almost made it too. The magic behind the slayer line was not completely understood. Nobody could predict with any accuracy who would be called when the current slayer died. Nobody was sure why girls became potentials. To be prefectly honest, it was almost trial and error to identify them once they became potentials in the first place. The answers were lost in the untold histories before the watcher's council took it upon themselves to train slayers in their holy mission. It was too bad really, as understanding the creation of the Slayer would no doubt help him in figuring out how to train a calm and happy homemaker into something that would survive the rigors of Slaying.
A quiet buzzing inturrupted Dr. Tofu's thoughts as his next patient was announced. With a brief look at the wall in the direction of the storage room he rose from his desk to treat Mrs. Tanaka's arthritis.
Kasumi was no stranger to hard work. Half of a lifetime spent on the various tasks involved in household maintenance had given her both a supreme work ethic and a determination to finish the job in front of her. Applying the same dogged resolve to her training session had proven to be second nature to her. After running through several exercises that would show Dr. Tofu her current level of skill (which was higher than he had expected), he began to demonstrate what he wanted her to practice while he tended to his morning patients.
The handbook had quite a bit to say on the subject of training a slayer. It seemed that while a slayer could increase her strength and speed from training, the primary purpose was control. Driving a stake through the chest of a vampire didn't help if you missed the heart after all... Since Dr. Tofu had decided that their first patrol would be that night, control of her new abilities was the focus of the day.
Sweat glistened on Kasumi's forehead as she leapt forward to the target. She was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of leaping at the stuffed dummy when she missed the marker that indicated the heart by almost twenty centimetres. 'Perhaps,' she thought, 'I shouldn't try so hard to make it look like an anime. Akane never did anything like this the first day of her training. I should stick to the simple moves.'
It was strange to be able to do things that, until yesterday, were the realm of her youngest sister and her father. To Kasumi, Akane's sheer strength was beyond belief. It worried her quite a bit actually, as this was not how the magical girl stories went. She wasn't supposed to be turning into a fighter, there were supposed to be cute animals and beautiful costumes. Clearly, nothing like that was going to happen and it was shaking her confidence in the whole idea.
Would the heroine not always win in the end?
Shaking off those depressing thoughts for a more optimistic outlook, she reflected that one thing all magical girl anime had in common was a main character that never gave up. If she never gave up, then everything would work out for her at least. Giving herself a firm nod, she picked up her stake and tried again.
Nerima, being a suburb, did not have it's own roaring nightlife. It was in most respects a quiet community; the obvious exceptions to this quiet were the local Martial Arts themed contests and events that had cropped up over the years. Most high level martial artists tended to either shun the presence of others or gather with like minded individuals. In this way they are no different from the rest of humanity in building a community around a common activity. The primary influence here however is that most Martial Arts tend to encourage early mornings rather than late nights. It also had the happy effect of making it a poor hunting grounds for vampires.
Most people, had they known, would have taken the lack of a local undead infestation to be a good thing. Indeed, Dr. Tofu felt that the lack of a large undead presence would only be a good thing as far as making Nerima a secure base of operations. It did mean, however, that they would have to travel to another district to find the majority of their prey. This lead Kasumi and her watcher to ride the train to Shinjuku to wander the streets in search of the forces of darkness.
A slight change in the original plan had come when Kasumi revealed that her wardrobe did not exactly contain anything appropriate to the evening's activities. Almost everything in Kasumi's closet was for daywear, her normal routine involved nothing more exciting than going to the local farmer's market. Slaying, even a light training patrol like there was to be tonight, would require some changes in this regard. The workout clothes Kasumi had used for training wouldn't do in public, and she didn't think she could fight in her standard housedress. A long dormant train of thought had raised itself that afternoon. Kasumi would have to go shopping for clothes. In the meantime, She would make do with her best blouse and skirt. Not ideal for fighting, but at least good enough to be seen in public with.
The stake she had been handed when she met Dr. Tofu at the station was another problem. Her clothes had no pockets, and her small purse would not conceal the weapon. Feeling disappointed that she had once again been unprepared for her new role she vowed to make sure she was never again without a place to carry her stake.
The train car, only being about half full, she decided this would allow her the perfect time to see if the Slayer's handbook had any advice on proper slaying attire. It wasn't very helpful. She had noticed, at times, that the handbook was written making certain assumptions. First, that the slayer in question had effectively been raised by her watcher. Second, that both slayer and watcher lived in the early 1800's. Third, that the slayer was living in England. The advice on slayer attire was simply to wear the far more practical men's clothing of the era, unless infiltration of a social setting was needed. Weapons were carried more in the open and questions were simply ignored.
Kasumi supposed that this book must be mostly used for it's hunting and slaying advice. It was far more helpful in this than it was in other things. She had looked up advice on hiding that she was a slayer from her family to find that it never referred to a slayer that still lived with them. Rather, it's advice was centered around meeting someone she had been related to during a mission. This thought was completely foreign to her mind. How could she not live with her family?
'Mother entrusted them to me, I am needed there.'
A light touch on Kasumi's forearm roused her from her thoughts as Dr. Tofu informed her that they had reached their stop. 'Time to be a magical girl.' she mused, as she nodded and rose from her seat.
It is worth noting that Kasumi's almost unnatural calm did not, as some believed, come from obliviousness. On the contrary, she noticed many details that most people would miss. She had simply devoted herself so completely to the care of her famiily that many of those details were disregarded as unnessicary to the moment. It was instead, from a certainty of her place in life. Walking along the busy streets of Tokyo at night was not a part of this place, or at least not until yesterday. 'Was it only yesterday?' she asked herself as she followed her Watcher down the block. 'It already seems like so long ago. Strange that it isn't more strange.' She giggled softly at that last thought.
Dr. Tofu had lead them past the brightly lit shops and into a darker part of the district. "The vampire stalks its prey where it will not be noticed. A creature of the night, it tries to strike when its target is alone and defenseless. While it may select its victim in a crowd, the kill is almost invariably done in a dark and secluded location. Our task tonight is to find one, and show you what you will face in the future." As her watcher went on about the task ahead, Kasumi's attention was drawn to a small group of youngish men emerging from an allyway. She wasn't sure what it was but something about those people drew her and repelled her at the same time. Suddenly one of them turned her way and she was shocked to see it was Yoshiro! They stared at each other before he turned back and rejoined the group he had been walking with. Shaking herself, she hurried forward to catch up to Dr. Tofu, who had stopped and was watching her with interest.
As she rejoined her watcher, Kasumi felt the strange sensation recede. An uncertain expression on her face, she began speaking before Dr. Tofu could.
"Tofu-Sensei, I'm certain that was Maya's brother back there. We should go after him! She has been ever so worried about him."
Dr. Tofu nodded. A small smile appeared on his face. "I agree we should. If you are right, he might be a target. Lets follow him and see what happens." Turning, the pair backtracked to the last intersection and crossed to the side of the street the young men had traveled. Unsure where the group had gone, Kasumi was trying not to fret as she looked for Yoshiro on the street. She only listened with half an ear as Dr. Tofu began lecturing again. "Slayers do not just hunt with their eyes alone. All your senses are enhanced by the slayer's power. If you focus you can hear a heartbeat across a room, smell the blood of a victim, and feel the chill of the walking dead. Some slayers are said to be able to sense that which is inhuman with a sort of sixth sense, though this is somewhat rare."
Catching sight of Yoshiro outside a dance club she didn't really process this, but when she realized she had seen him clearly from over a block away the realization stunned her. Kasumi's eyes widened slightly as she realized what Dr. Tofu had been saying. "I see him Tofu-sensei, let's go get him. We can finish training another night." Striding off with purpose, Kasumi prepared to give Yoshiro a piece of her mind.
By the time they had reached the dance club, a loud place called Code, Yoshiro wasn't out front. Seeing no-one that would have likely seen him, she decided to enter the club and look for him there. Having never been to a dance club in her life, Kasumi was a bit overwhelmed at the loud music and flashing lights. She could feel the bass thumping in her chest, and the stuffy smell of the smoke machine hung heavy in the air. A small frown of concentration formed on her face as she stepped further inside the club. The dance floor was a mass of moving bodies, gyrating in time to the bass line while arms waved in the air.
Searching across the floor for the smallest sign of her quarry, she was forced to admit she wasn't going to find him without heading further into the club. Her naturally quiet and demure gait combined with the awakened slayer instincts giving her an almost ethereal quality as she navigated the room. She quickly discovered she could slip through small spaces in the crowd while she hunted. Hunting... She didn't really like thinking of it that way, but it was the word that seemed to fit in her mind. Suddenly off to her left she saw one of the jackets that the boys with Yoshiro had been wearing.
'Good,' she thought. 'He should be able to tell me where Yoshiro is.' Now that she had sight of her target, another word she felt bad about using, she Worked her way through the crowd. As she got closer, that odd feeling that had drawn her attention to the boys in the first place started to reappear. Deciding she definitely had to ask Tofu-sensei about it later, she walked up behind the boy and tapped him on the shoulder.
The boy had been chatting with a young, pretty girl in a colorful dress. He was a good head taller than the girl; in fact he was a little taller than Kasumi herself. He was dressed nice but not fancy, almost as if he expected his clothes to see some wear. Grey slacks and jacket over a yellow shirt. His face had formed a scowl as he turned to see who had interrupted him. He looked over Kasumi like a piece of meat, an eyebrow raised. "Can I help you?" His voice was a comfortable baritone, but its tone was ice cold. He was obviously trying to get rid of her.
Undaunted, Kasumi looked him in the eyes and brought up the familiar mask of the smiling homemaker. "Oh yes, you can! I saw you on the street with Yoshiro a little while ago. I know his sister and she is ever so worried about him. He hasn't called or written in so long. Could you take me to him?"
The man's eyes narrowed at the mention of Yoshiro's name, but it was a small thing. A calculating look crossed his face, "Who is asking? You will have to excuse me but Yoshiro never mentioned having a sister to me. I think you are mistaken." His eyes shifted back to the girl he had been talking to before and back to Kasumi. His gaze intensified, as if he was trying to see into her soul.
Kasumi, having seen Nabiki do the same thing, was not intimidated in the least. In fact, her sister probably did it better than this stranger ever could. She stared right back, a little excited at the feelings that had bubbled up under her calm demeanor. 'This must be why Nabiki enjoys it so much,' she mused, 'the matching of wills is a little thrilling.' Outwardly she showed no sign of her thoughts as she smiled brightly, "Oh, I've been rude. My name is Kasumi Tendo and I am a friend of Maya Yamada."
The man nodded as if making a momentous decision and turned to the younger girl. "I am sorry. It seems I have to escort this lady. I hope I can meet you here again." Turning back to Kasumi he motioned toward the side door, "I believe he went out for a bit of fresh air. If you would follow me?" The two walked out the side door and into the alley.