Because Scheris needs a better backstory damn it!

Seijin no Hi : Scheris Adjani
Coming of Age Day
Second Monday of January

Scheris Adjani remembered that her aunt's was the first Coming of Age Day party she ever went to.

It wasn't exactly a five-star event, she reflected ruefully. No, the halls of HOLY had been cleaner and newer and simply better than any place she'd ever lived or even been before. But... but it was certainly lavish for their money situation at the time. Besides, in her five-year-old mind, clean tablecloths seemed like luxury.

Estelle Sakamoto was the prized middle child of the family, because she was the only one "who hadn't completely screwed up her life", as her father had said, glaring at her Estelle's sister – her mother - the entire while. It was somewhat true; Trinette, the youngest, had fallen into downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse, overdosing more than once, constantly asking for money from her parents and siblings; her own mother, Valerie, the oldest, had landed herself an abusive second husband and more debt than she could handle.

Estelle, on the other hand...

Estelle was perfect. She had the looks, she had the smarts, and she had the determination and the initiative to work herself out of her low social and economic status. She put herself through high school in the City while simultaneously working three jobs to pay for said education. She had been granted a scholarship on the mainland by her final year in high school, but couldn't go until she was twenty.

It seemed that at that age, Estelle was at the height of her life, brimming with confidence and the excitement of seeing something besides the endless wasteland of the Lost Ground. She was so different from the rest of her family – the downtrodden, the oppressed, the hopeless, the meek... Estelle was amazing in her little eyes, a bright shining star she would always yearn to reach, a pinnacle she wanted to climb to. That was why the Coming of Age Day was so special to her. The second Monday of January always had a precious place in her heart because Coming of Age meant utter perfection.

"Here, Cherisa," she said with a soft smile, leaning down to pat her niece on the head. "I want you to have this hair clip. My mother gave it to me when I was just a little girl, and now I want you to have it. Give it to some little girl you meet on your own Coming of Age Day."

Cherisa Aoishita didn't want to say with her family, watch her mother abused daily and her sisters cower in the closet. She didn't want to keep making dinner while her mother choked back sobs on the floor of the kitchen. She didn't want to stay in that hellhole for the rest of her days.

Her prayer was soon answered, but not in the way she would have wanted it to be.

She was thirteen. She was walking home from the local vendor where her father had ordered her to buy more bread. ("And don't come back unless it's not rotten, got it?") Fresh food was something of a commodity at times. She heard something in the alley.

"Hello?" Cherisa called out tentatively. "Anybody there?"

And then he lunged: like a predator, the hunger-starved man attempted to dive at her bread, missing and instead leaping upon her. She was about to let him have it, just to get him to leave, but then she realized what a beating she would get if she came home without money and bread. They tossed and turned into the alley and then to the street and back again. In the end, he was standing over her kneeling, heaving form, grinning madly at her with famine-crazed eyes. His hand flew out to club her across the head –

It was over-over-over, it wouldn't matter any more, she would never get out of that house, that wretched house, she would never get her Coming of Age Day party –

She didn't know it, but her hand was glowing. Almost without thought, she raised it in self-defense, where her hand should have hit his stomach.

Instead, it went through his skin directly into his stomach. Suddenly, Cherisa felt very faint, as if all the energy in her and all the adrenaline pumping from the fight were drained in the course of a few seconds. She had no idea what was happening until she felt his blood on her neck, blood that he had just coughed up.

I... am an Alter User...?

-

Yes, Scheris remembered everything quite clearly. She remembered coming home, finding her father holding a thick pipe in his hands, warning her against coming any closer. She remembered running away from the house, sprinting away from that awful place. She remembered finding out later that her aunt Trinette had been trailing her according to her father's wishes in exchange for drug money. After a few months of moping and starving, she remembered changing her name from Cherisa Aoishita to Scheris Adjani. Scheris was simply a form of Cherisa, and Adjani was the name of a candy she had always eaten at her grandparents' house. She wanted to start anew. After that...

Basically, she had wandered around, usually begging for food and taking shelter where she could.

The year of her fourteenth birthday, she remembered spying on a Coming of Age Day party. It wasn't much more glamorous than Estelle's, but it was obviously extravagant for the financial circumstances the family had been dealt. They were all so happy, so radiant, so excited for the handsome boy in the center of it all, who was quietly grinning and accepting praise with a humble face.

Scheris watched with soft eyes, remembering her favorite aunt. It was all so peaceful, so wonderful... nothing bad could ever happen on this day –

"Hey! Freak!"

She didn't turn her head, but her eyes moved from the party to her peripheral vision, seeing three men from the corner of he eyes. Scheris groaned.

Taka and his group of self-righteous thugs had bothered her ever since finding out about her seldom-used Alter power. Apparently, they had some sort of bad history with Alter Users or something, because they never stopped hassling her about it. It was because of these creeps and people like them that she learned how to fist-fight.

Slowly she rose, turning with poise to face them with her chin up. "What do you want?"

"Ooh, a sassy one," said a smirking crony. "What are we gonna do with her boss?"

The fight was a quick and vicious one; an unarmed girl really didn't stand a chance against four full-grown males with assorted weapons. Drowsy with pain, she was dragged to a warehouse type place that was half-immersed in the ground, an entire side ripped off by the Great Upheaval. They watched with great amusement from a booth sitting high atop the wall across from her as she struggled to get up from her wounds and fight.

"Yeah! Try again, freak!"

"Where's your Alter to save you now, huh?"

"Shit!"

Scheris looked up through her partially blackened eyes. She squinted against the sun to make out to people. No, a boy and his Alter.

"Are you alright?" asked the boy, looking down at her with regality fit for an Emperor, but with kindness as well.

"I...I guess," she murmured, looking up at him with wide, awe-filled eyes. "W-who...?"

"Ryuhou. Ryuhou Ryuu."

-

And that was how she had met Ryuhou, cementing in her mind how absolutely wonderful Coming of Age Day was. But that also led to her current predicament.

Did she really love Ryuhou? Really? Or was it just some girlhood fantasy of a knight in shining armor? Did she like Ryuhou because of who he was or because of where and when he was? Did she just think she was in love because he was her savior on her most precious holiday? If it had been Asuka, Cougar, or Urizane who had saved her, would she have fallen for them instead?

How could she possibly know? She needed more time, she need to mature to figure these things out. She needed to Come of Age before really making a decision...

I'll wait... I'll wait for the second Monday of January, the year of my twentieth birthday...

Two things that always pissed me off about s.CRY.ed: 1) not enough females 2) no backstory for females. Or any other semi-minor character (i.e. Tachibana - all we know is he never finished high school and his girlfriend is Cammy. We never find out how he meets Cammy or what happened to his family, or anything like that! That makes me angry. And you won't like me when I'm angry.) So wah-lah! Backstory!

Coming of Age Day is celebrated by 20-year-old peoples. 20 is the legal age for smoking, drinking, and voting. It's a big step. So, uh, yeah. Review, please!