Translation Notes: "Ojou-sama" means young mistress and "Aniki" means big brother.
Yaho! Kinky Robot here with another chapter of Sweet Rewards! Today we have a bit of stone-cold bitching from Arisa, a few balls getting hit, a mysterious interview, and some hot manservice care of Daryl! Enjoy~
Chapter 4: Old Memories
"Mic test. 1-2-3. Mic test. 1-2-3," a smooth male voice boomed throughout the state-of-the-art recording studio.
"Please pause for a moment," Souta politely said through a microphone, directing a middle-aged voice actor on the other side of a one-way mirror. "I would like to adjust the pitch just a little biiiiiit," he drew the last syllable on as he slowly slid a bar up on the large holographic mixing console in front of him. "There. Now, another mic test please."
"Mic test. 1-2-3. Mic mic test. 1-2," the actor repeated.
"Alright! Just perfect. Now, if you would please begin with the first line in 3… 2… 1…" Souta touched a holographic button, "Recording."
"Founded in 2012, by Kuhouin Okina-sama, the Kuhouin Group of Companies has risen from humble beginnings to become the number one conglomerate in Japan."
Souta sat back and read the script for the audio-video presentation to be shown at the Kuhouin Group's 35th Founding Anniversary. Around him, other people monitored voice input, video output and the soundtrack. The video Souta and his advertising staff put together using photos and film clips of the Kuhouin Group's key achievements throughout the decades was playing on the monitor. He took a quick glance up at it when a photo of Arisa came up. She stood next to her late grandfather during a party from eight years ago, just before the Second Apocalypse.
The actor continued speaking as the slideshow switched to a recent photo of the company's current president. "Under the leadership of Kuhouin Arisa-sama, the Kuhouin Group helped rebuild Japan after the Fourth Apocalypse."
Souta noted how long Arisa's hair has become. She hasn't cut her hair in years so her sandy blonde locks fell well below her waist. The staff often remarked that this was the silk veil of the iron maiden. Her reddish-brown eyes never seemed to smile anymore. He took every chance to try and cheer her up, but he just ends up annoying her every time. It's a mystery why she hasn't fired me yet.
"Cut, and" he touched the holograph again, "That's take one. You did a very good job, Sato-san, but let's try putting more emotion into it on the next take." He grinned at the man in the recording booth.
"Yes, sir." The actor took his headphones off and took a swig at his bottled water.
Hahahahaha! Maybe it's because I'm such a talented director! Souta gave a thumbs up to the actor who he realized couldn't see him because of the one-way mirror. He laughed weakly and scratched his head. Members of his advertising staff by now was used to these little quirks which were made up for by the fact that he actually is a good director with two award-winning television commercials and three hit music videos under his belt.
There was a gentle knock on the door and a woman with black hair tied into a traditional Japanese ponytail entered the room. It was Kurachi, former secretary of the late Kuhouin Okina, and the current executive assistant of Arisa.
"Tamadate-san, Kuhouin-sama would like to see you in her office," she quietly announced before leaving.
"Be right there!" Souta spun around his chair and headed for the door. "Quick break, guys. If I'm not back in ten minutes, please start the second take without me." He gathered his script and passed them to the video editor. "Make sure to monitor the timing of the speaking to the slideshow 'kay?"
Kurachi held the elevator open for Souta. When he entered, she pressed the button for the top floor which prompted an eye and handprint scan. After Kurachi received authorization, the elevator doors closed and they began moving up. The doors opened at last into an opulent black and gold lobby leading to one prominent red door that required another security scan.
"Don't you find all this tedious, Kurachi-san?"
"Yes, but it is necessary for Ojou-sama's safety."
The red door slid open revealing an elegant office decorated with furniture in soft neutral colours, a stark contrast to the previous room. Standing behind a large wooden desk, Arisa looked out at a panoramic view of Tokyo shining in the Sunday morning light. She turned, long straw-coloured hair waving, to find her assistant Kurachi bowing and Souta standing up, looking perky as usual with his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants. This, in combination with his plain white t-shirt, is a blatant disregard for corporate attire.
"Why must you always dress like that, Tamadate-san?" Arisa squinted and sat on a large beige office chair. She signaled for him to sit on the chair in front of her.
"Arisa-sempai," Souta bashfully took the seat and replied, "I'm an artist, not a salary man."
Where does he get the guts to still be calling me 'sempai'? I'm not just his senior anymore. I'm his boss for crying out loud. Arisa sighed in frustration and handed him a memory stick. "Here are the details for the anniversary party next week."
"Okay," he took out his holographic tablet and scanned the tiny glassy stick to transfer the data. "Saturday, July 27, 2047," he read. "Next weekend, huh?"
"Yes, I would like for your department to layout the invitations. They have to be counterfeit proof. I don't want any gate crashers." She coldly said as her chest tightened at the memory of another good-looking gate crasher who stole her heart.
"Sure, I think our print guys can make that happen," he clicked the tablet closed and handed back the memory stick, "Under one condition."
She snatched back the small device with a scowl. "What?"
"SMILE!" Souta pointed at his cheeks and gave her a wide grin. "Just once. Just a little biiiit?"
"No."
"T-t-then I won't do it!" he declared, secretly shaking at the knees.
"I'll outsource it then," emotionlessly she picked up her phone. "It'll probably be cheaper."
"I thought you didn't want gate crashers?"
Arisa glared at him.
Souta continued, "You can't trust anyone else. That's why you sent for me personally, right?"
She forced a half-smile at Souta's direction.
"Not so hard is it? Don't worry, Arisa-sempai. Just for you, I'm going to do the layout and printing myself," he stood up to leave. "I'll send you a sample after lunch." Kurachi opened the door for him as he strode out into the hallway.
As soon as the elevator doors closed, Souta slumped and exhaled. "Kurachi-san! I thought I was going to pee in my pants!" He shut his eyes and rubbed his blushing face with his hands.
"It's alright, Tamadate-san. You handled it well." Kurachi patted him on the back. "I truly appreciate your effort in helping Kuhouin-sama."
He gave her a gratified smile, "I'm just being myself."
A fast ball shot out from the pitching machine at right at Daryl. He swung the metal bat to meet the ball with force enough to score him a homerun in a real game.
In the next cage, Alex clapped his hands. "That was a 117!" the college senior ecstatically praised him.
Daryl hiked up the sleeves of his plain black shirt and tapped the tip of the bat on the back of a white sneaker. He crouched back into form and swung his body to hit another 117-kilometer-per-hour baseball. He placed a burning warm hand on a red hologram to stop the machine. "That was easy," he bragged, resplendently shaking droplets of sweat off his light blonde hair. "You should try it!" He gave his younger cousin a child-like grin as he reached in his jeans pocket for a handkerchief.
While Alex adjusted the ball speed, Daryl sat down dabbing away at the perspiration on his neck. He's been smiling non-stop since they stepped into Shinjuku Batting Center. Baseball was his favourite game and reminded him of the good old days.
Charles Gespenst taught his son, Alexander, and his nephew, Daryl, the great American sport. The two boys, three years apart in age, grew up side by side like brothers. Daryl was the brave big brother and Alex was the timid little brother. When Daryl was seven, he started playing in little league as Alex, Aunt Charlotte, Uncle Charles, and on one occasion, even his mother cheered for him in the bleachers. In the past there was a time when Maria could still muster up the courage to go outside her house for important events, as long as she was accompanied by her sister and brother-in-law.
Once they even took an overseas trip to Japan to visit the then Major Yan and for Maria to meet up personally with one of her scientific colleagues. Unfortunately, that trip coincided with Lost Christmas. When the family returned home to America, Maria never came out of her room again and her manic-depressive episodes became more frequent. Aunt Charlotte explained that the post-traumatic stress from witnessing the disaster in Japan overloaded his mother's already fragile mental condition.
Still, Daryl and Alex tried to continue life as usual for the next three years, until Daryl's mother committed suicide by overdosing on anti-depressants. Daryl moved to Japan to live with Major General Yan and Alex stayed behind. Over the course of seven years, Charles slowly started showing signs of crystallization, the virus initially dormant and undetected in his body. The technology in America couldn't provide for adequate treatment of virus so Charles had to be brought back to Japan in the year 2038.
Alex was happy to be reunited with his cousin, but something about Daryl had changed. On the outside he seemed to be his regular happy self, but the younger boy knew that his "big brother" was broken. He figured that it had to be his job as a member of the Antibodies. Abandoned by his mother, Daryl would do anything to gain the approval of his father. He shut off his true feelings and focused on being a ruthless killer. He put on a happy face in front of his dear cousin, but fourteen-year-old Alex could tell that deep down he regretted taking so many lives. It was so like him to pretend like everything's okay. The young teen knew his cousin too well to be fooled.
Same still holds true today for the two young men, three inches apart in height.
"You look happy today, Aniki." Alex called to Daryl, letting a ball pass by. "Did something happen yesterday?" The shorter boy swung his bat and hit the next ball.
Daryl unconsciously dropped his bat in surprise and the heavy rod landed square on his foot. Shit, I can't believe it! He thought wincing in pain.
Alex put on a New York Yankees cap to keep his jet black hair from falling onto his face. He looked across to the next batting cage to find his cousin's six-foot-tall frame hunched over his foot, his face blushing profusely. Ah. It must be that girl.
He raised the speed to 122 kph and hit the ball. Daryl noticed this, and with his competitive spirit triggered, set his machine to the same speed. Alex, sent another ball flying and said, "I met a girl this morning."
Daryl in battle mode asked, "Oh yeah?" He set the speed higher before delivering another powerful hit. "A cute girl?"
"Yes," the dark haired boy answered, matching his big brother's setting. "Very cute."
Daryl cranked the pitching machine to the max at 140 kph and got ready. "Me, too," he tapped the bat on his shoe then poised it above his shoulders, "But I've met her before." The machine spit out a blinding fast baseball.
"The girl from the school festival?" Alex shouted while maxing out the speed on his control panel.
"WHAT?" Daryl swung and missed the ball. "Hey, I never told you about that!
Alex on the other hand hit the ball perfectly, sending it to the virtual outfield. He tapped a button on the panel shutting down the machine's engine. "Sorry about that, Aniki." He turned to his infuriated rival.
Scowling, Daryl dropped his bat and shut off his pitching device. He stormed out the batting cage and into the changing room. He opened his locker and grabbed a towel. He sat down and put the towel over his head. He looked down at the white-tiled floor when a pair of black cross-trainers walked up to him.
"You must have forgotten, but you told me about how you met back then. After your dad got killed by the Undertakers," Alex sat beside a silent Daryl. "You went on an undercover mission at my school."
The former Lieutenant held his blonde head in his hands. He tried to remember but there were memory gaps from the terrorist attack at Haneda Airport and to the School Festival, and another one between the time he was commanded to protect Tsutsugami Gai and the time he woke up in a prison cell at GHQ. He felt an agonizing pulse from the device on his chest every time he tried to remember. He clutched at it and tried to think of something else. Tsugumi.
Alex put a hand on Daryl's shoulder, "Just take a minute to cool down, Aniki." He strapped on his back pack and stood up. "I'm going ahead. I have an assignment to finish."
"Lex?" Daryl called out. The towel slid down to his shoulders when he looked up to see his cousin sliding the glass door behind him.
"Cool down, huh?" He took off his shirt and walked towards a shower stall.
Yahiro took the stairs up to his fifth floor office from the ground floor cafeteria. The building had elevators but he needed the exercise to clear his mind after last night's fiasco with Kanon. He thought back to his high school days, when he knew all along that Kanon had a crush on him. He feigned ignorance since he didn't really find her all that attractive then, plus he had some bigger things to deal with.
Yahiro's parents were both quickly consumed by the Apocalypse Virus during Lost Christmas and his little brother, Jun, contracted the disease as well. He did what he could to give his brother the treatment that he needed. He turned to dealing the drug Norma Gene under the alias "Sugar" to cover their expenses, but it wasn't enough. He was driven to the edge and sold Shu out to GHQ so that Jun could be cured. Unfortunately, by the time the crystallization reached level 4, there was hardly anything anyone could do about it.
When Jun's life was cut by Shu with Yahiro's own void, he felt extremely mortified that his deepest desire was to end his brother's suffering. He eventually came to terms with this and swore to use his void to save lives.
Yahiro gripped the railing and stopped for a second. I don't have time for this. He kept walking up the stairs and opened the door into the fifth floor. He took a quick detour to the men's room where he splashed his face with cold water. He looked back at his reflection in the mirror. His dark amber eyes seemed tired of living.
I have nothing left to live for. I'm a dead man. I have no needs.
He wiped his face with a paper towel and quickly practiced a smile in front of the mirror. Walking in to the Finance Department of Genome Biotechnology, he noticed a foreign-looking young man waiting in the receiving area.
"You must be Alexander Gespenst." He walked up to him and offered his hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Samukawa-san." The dark-haired boy stood up to give the older man a firm handshake, "Please call me, Alex."
Yahiro led Alex into his small office and bid him to take a seat. He took off his brown coat and unbuttoned the top button of his long-sleeved shirt. "So Alex, I received your letter. It's very unusual that a boy your age didn't send an e-mail."
"I'm sorry, Samukawa-san. I hope I didn't cause you any inconvenience."
"No. Not at all. It's very refreshing."
"I just wanted to ask you a few questions," Alex pulled out a notepad and a fountain pen from his backpack. "As you know, I'm writing an article about the lock down of Loop 7 back in 2039."
"Yes, it said on your letter that you were stranded in Tennozu High as well." Yahiro took the seat in front of the purple-eyed student.
"I was in junior high, class 2-C."
"The same year as Tsugumi-chan?"
"Yes, but we were never in the same class." Alex began to quickly put pen to paper. "Samukawa-san, I heard that it was you who initiated the Void Ranking System with the approval of Student President Ouma Shu. Is this true?"
"Yes." Yahiro came up with the idea of ranking people based on their voids thinking that it was for the greater good, but backfired and ended up being the very things that caused Arisa to turn on them and lead to Gai cutting off Shu's arm.
"What was your basis for your ranking system?"
"At first we used a Genomic Resonance Gauge, but we found that it would be easier to just take out a person's void to see for ourselves what it was worth."
"And how did you rank the 'worth' of a void?"
"Starting from the top, we had Rank S+ held by only one person Yuzuriha Inori. Her void had powerful offensive, defensive and evasive capabilities. Rank S voids were mostly strong defensive and evasive types such as the Voids of Hare-chan, Ayase-san, and Arisa-kaichou, while Rank A voids," Yahiro picked up a small pair of scissors. "Like mine, were strong offensive types. Rank B were moderate defensives and evasives, Rank C were moderate offensives."
He used the scissors to absent-mindedly cut a sheet of tissue randomly cluttered on his desk. "Rank D were weak defensives and evasives, Rank E were weak offensives, and Rank F were simply utility voids. These were 'useful' voids but had no actual combat application."
"I see," he scribbled the information down.
"What rank were you, Alex?"
"Rank F." He didn't look up and continued writing with his ornate fountain pen. "Samukawa-san, do you still have the copy of the Void Ranking Database?"
"I'm not sure," Yahiro put the scissors down. "It was so long ago."
"That's too bad." Alex blankly replied.
Just then, Yahiro's phone rang. He looked at the small holographic panel that flashed the name, Kusama Kanon.
"I'm sorry, I have to take this call." He strode out into the hallway and clicked open his ringing phone to answer, "Hey, gorgeous."
"Don't you 'Hey, gorgeous' me, you insensitive bastard!" Kanon shouted as she combed her hair in front of the mirror. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm coming over later. I left my eyeglasses at your place."
"I brought them with me," Yahiro leaned against the wall. "Would you like me to pick you up from the hospital after your shift?"
Kanon's face grew pink. "Sure, but we're going to have to talk about last night." She carefully combed her bangs in place.
"If you say so, gorgeous."
"Stop it!" The black-haired girl shouted over the speaker phone while putting on a pair of contact lenses. I hate how he makes me feel so weak! She blinked a few times. "I'll see you later." She said, clicking her phone closed.
Yahiro chuckled and thought that having Kanon around makes him feel a little better. He went back into his tiny office. Alex stood and extended his hand, "Thank you for time, Samukawa-san."
The brown-haired assistant director shook the slim hand, "Are you sure you got the information you needed?"
"Yes," Alex bowed. "It was nice meeting you."
"You, too." Yahiro politely smiled at the boy who left promptly.
Geez, kids these days just don't know how to slow down.
Tsugumi came out of the Shinjuku Video Game Arcade carrying a large bunny stuffed toy. Feeling satisfied with her latest high score and her new prize, she thought of celebrating with a nice cold can of Dr. Ginger soda.
She approached the vending machine. "Awww… It's out of stock!" She hugged the pink and white rabbit. "Ah! There's another one in the sports center downstairs!" She playfully swung the fluffy bunny like a baseball bat. As she walked down the stairs and into the hallway, she found the vending machine next to the changing rooms. She held the bunny up and said, "You're so adorable! I think I'll call you Daryl!"
A young man suddenly came out of the changing room, turned around and bumped into Tsugumi.
"YOU!" They simultaneously screeched.
She bent down to pick up the pink Daryl from the ground and slowly looked up at the blonde Daryl. At least in her mind, it felt slow. His blue denim jeans hung low on his slim hips and he was deliciously shirtless. He had finely sculpted abdominal muscles and smooth white skin. Her eyes traveled up to stop at a strange stainless steel ring embedded into his chest. She was obsessed with machines and wanted to touch it so bad.
Daryl looked down at the happily phased out girl who was going to poke at his metal implant. "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
Tsugumi, with excited eyes, asked, "What is it?"
"Can I explain it to you AFTER I put my shirt on?"
"Huh?" She watched as the tall boy raised his lean but muscular arms to put on a plain black t-shirt. His wet uncombed hair drooped onto his slightly blushing face. He walked over to the vending machine and turned back to Tsugumi.
"It's rude to stare," he looked across the product display. "And please close your mouth. It's so un-ladylike."
The tiny girl snapped back to reality and quickly used the cute Daryl to hide her face from the cuter Daryl. Oh no! That was so embarrassing! Was I really staring that long?
"Hey runt, is Dr. Ginger okay with you?" He handed her a can. "You can give it back if you don't want it!"
"No," Tsugumi smiled at him. "It's my favourite!"
End of Chapter 4: Old Memories
First and foremost, DARYL Y U SO HOT? I (not literally) got a massive nosebleed from his glorious abs shown in Episode 21. *_*
And yes, purplesparkz02, Alex is Mr. Handwriting! I realized that I had to add a few more original characters because Guilty Crown killed off the most interesting ones. Like Granpa Kuhouin, Kido Kenji and Major Segai. I could even use Dan Eagleman at this point, but he kicked the bucket too. Hmph.
Next time on Sweet Rewards: Two canon characters return and things get shady? Hohoho?
Love Always,
Kinky Robot
PS. A deep bow to Master Katylar for his/her epic review! Because this is my first fanfic, I figured I could be lazy about the formatting and "write as I speak", but your constructive criticism really helped me realize my full potential. Expect better quality from here on! *salute*