2-20-2014 UPDATE: Ever notice how tiresome disclaimers can be? I never bothered to notice before but it can be such a pain in the hindquarters after while. It depresses you and enforces the idea that you basically don't own anything save the man rantings inside your own mind. How oddly off-putting yet strangely liberating. You can probably see where my madness is going. I really don't quite know why I persist on writing this, only that I have to. So here goes another.
Story Notes:
Normal Narration
"Dialogue"
Thoughts/Feeling
Internal monologue and ranting
CHAPTER V:
LOOKING THROUGH MURKY MIRRORS
It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils
the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Needless to say Umino Kazuto was not in the best frame of mind. He was in fact in one of his uber-rare towering rages that spelled disaster for anyone who caused it. Years of living with a pacifist, bleeding mother-hen type lent him enough practice regarding patience. Any other time and most would say that just like his father, he favored peaceful times and peaceful solutions even when unlike his father he does it with shouts and wagging fists.
Many of the house's denizens declared that Kazuto never met a stranger in his life and that in some weird cosmic hand of fate, he makes certain that anyone who crosses his path never stays a stranger for long.
However, even his near-legendary (or at least in his head) tolerance and friendliness there are obvious and in this case—glaring exemptions. The snake and his ilk just happened to be one of them.
The news of his Dad's slithering mummified corpse of a lunch date immediate soured his mood and it took much of his vaunted patience to resist the urge to trample everything underfoot in a fit of temper. As it is he is already glaring down at his shirt that's crumpled beyond repair in his fist. It would be the first of the many victims for him today.
He could feel the burning heat in his eyes as frustration waged a furious battle inside him, recalling the anxious look that marred the usual cheerful, serene brown of his father's eyes. It didn't ease the sudden cramp of restlessness that filled his stomach when the man tried to smile for his benefit. It was all he could do not to give vent to his feelings and punch something. Or someone.
Preferably the smug son of a mummified snake that would be disgracing us with his presence very soon.
The day's lunch guest was his dad's uncle. Truthfully the term should be toke uncle since like him; they don't share a single drop of common blood between them. His father had the blood of angels running through his veins and that man had something that was certainly of the cold-blooded persuasion.
The man was adopted by his dad's paternal grandfather and as such was treated as his dad's uncle. When his adopted father's grandfather died, the snake, as his lawyer at the time, was assigned as conservator for the family estate until Iruka became of legal age. To Dad and everyone else's eternal joy, his father was only a minor for all of three months and with such close scrutiny paid to the man by all of the friends of Dad's father, the slimy man couldn't do much except follow the will to the letter. Not that damage to the family fortunes never materialized. By the time got his inheritance it was less than what anyone expected. It certainly didn't help when Dad chose one of his own friends to become his lawyer afterwards, dismissing the snaky slime ball from his services.
Not that it stopped the man from trying to snake his way into Dad's life and influence it anyway he could. He was adamantly against my adoption and tried every roadblock imaginable to make Dad change his mind. He railed against my looks, my origins—which he found seriously questionable.
It wasn't like Dad shared that information with anyone. He found me in the dead of night and the only ones that knew of THAT fact was my dad.
Besides, what the heck does my looks got to do with anything, stupid pedophile?
He even raised the issue of my gender and the implications it would have on dad. Not like that would be much of an impact considering as I mentioned, my dad is cute and he just looks like a bleached up thing that cant decided whether to be male, female or even human. He said that other people would wonder where I came from because he simply didn't believe Dad's story that I was entrusted to dear old dad by an old friend.
Most of Dad's friends believe he found me lost on some backwater town he visited. Actually they have a lot of theories about where I came from, but we'll get to that later.
Now, most folks would wonder why, knowing how he—adopted son and all—would feel such enmity for a fellow adoptee—and the answer would be quite simple. The man was an out and out snake.
You see, a few months after his Dad got him he had the luckless misfortune of crossing path with his dad's slimy, bandaged guardian. That single glance when they met on the hall might not have been enough to consider it earth-shattering but damn if it wasn't memorable.
It was those cold golden eyes that got to him. There was no ripple of emotion in that soulless reptilian gaze. Not one that could be considered human anyways. Even the men who took him had more emotions hidden in their gazes than the ebony haired, golden eyed figure that swept past him that day.
His gaze was colder than even the winter seas...and just as unfeeling. He could feel it—the disgust and the condescension—the judging gaze that declared him unworthy. The thin lips that curled with distaste so cleverly hidden behind a bland smile every time he would call out his father's name.
Never before has he met a man who simply oozed deviousness and malevolence. It wasn't like the man was outrageous or anything though looking like a slimy androgynous git already marked him in the dark corner of Kazuto's books.
Hey, you end up being kidnapped, tortured at shot at for two years and let's see if you don't develop some healthy paranoia of your own.
Now, paranoia aside, on paper and in the eyes of many, the man should have been above reproach. Should have been being the operative word.
No, the reason why he personally loathed the man, was not because of his less than usual looks or the rumored preferences he seemed to exhibit especially with that equally snake-oil slime personal assistant he kept with him at all times.
No, he hated the man for something even more visceral and primal—he loathed the way that man looked at his Iruka-daddy when he didn't think anyone was looking. And unfortunately for his bleached-up lily-white ass—Kazuto always very conscious of the people around him. He understood that look better than anyone else. It was the look many of those in that dark dank shank wore whenever their gaze would fall on him.
That hungry, almost slavering look that was tinged with hatred and scorn and undeniable malice. The look of a cruel predator that's growing frustrated with a cunning prey that continually manages to evade capture.
The man always pretended to be pleasant and smiling whenever he was in the manor but he wasn't fooling anyone except maybe Iruka-daddy alone and that wouldn't go on for very long. Kazuto never cared for anyone except his dad and he would make sure that his father was safe—even from his own naiveté. Even if he has to conceal his retaliation behind petty pranks. Or not so petty ones.
The man was relentless after all. Ever since that first meeting when his father introduced him as his son, the snake has done everything under the sun—save for outrightly killing him in front of his father to get him away from Iruka. Suffice to say that damned snake did nearly everything to discredit his suitability and he never trusted for one moment that he was already adopted when he met him. (It was true though, but not that he'd ever care for that information).
It got so bad that it reached the point when Dad was actually contemplating taking legal actions against him. Thus, the monthly visits instead of the near daily ones that occurred during his early days. Thankfully or not, the man ceased his ranting's and grudgingly acquiesced to his Dad's wishes when Iruka declared that he would sooner sell the manor to a passing tramp than have Kazuto's presence in his life constantly questioned. The ultimatum certainly shut the snake's trap and sealed in Kazuto's mind the grain of truth regarding the snake's enmity towards him.
To this day, he finds himself grateful that it was one of his Dad's friends, his lawyer Hayate, who handled his adoption. He could only shudder in revulsion if he were to think what would've happened if the snake knew everything there is about him, including the less the usual way he found himself in his dad's custody.
Honestly if he had known exactly the kind of events that would soon come to pass, he would've been doubly thankful of Hayate's presence in both his and his father's life. As it were, he would soon have even more reason to owe the man more than just his legal and personal gratitude. Soon he would have more reason to be eternally grateful that on that fateful night, he decided to climb into Umino Iruka's benign looking truck and trusted his young life into fate's hand.
Mt. Myõboku
Fire Nation
Present Time
The morning transformed the usually tranquil mansion into a veritable hive of activity. Unlike the usual absence of bodies, save for a few key attendants and the usual hum of a well-run household, now the mansion is bustling with an unusual amount of commotion. All day today there has been a constant traffic of bodies and vehicles coming and going from the front gates. The mansions many rooms have been summarily aired out, guest quarters dusted and replenished with fresh bedding, their accompanying bathing suites supplied with all the necessary accoutrements in preparation for their soon-to-arrive occupants.
Members of the staff kept pouring in as they scrambled to accommodate the influx of visitors that were poised to arrive for their master's impromptu meeting. The head of household, the master's regent, a red-haired quiet man stood communing with the head housekeeper, a small statured women with pale blue hair who ran the house with clockwork precision regarding room assignments when a loud booming voice sounded off somewhere within the vicinity of their master's private receiving room and they became the unwitting witness to their lord and master's uncharacteristic ranting.
"What the hell do you mean he's going on ahead?! I told that insolent brat that we needed to plan and strategize! What the hell is he thinking going on ahead! Who in Toad's hell gave him the goddamned location!"
The sudden silence that descended upon the mansion was profound. As one, lower level servants tried unobtrusively to face into the background so as to avoid detection. The mansions many guards remained impassive and quiet. The only ones who reacted to the sight and sound of their master's obvious outrage were the three personal seneschals that ruled over everyone save their master, and a svelte-figured, blonde-haired voluptuous woman who held a brandy snifter in one pale, long-fingered hand with an amused look in her eyes and a blood-red smirk on her lips.
"You old goat, you told him the information yourself. What right do you have to go thumping all over the place like an enraged idiotic bull-elephant?"
"Look, woman, I wanted them here so that I could brief them on what to do. Aren't you worried that mutt will ruin everything?!"
"That mutt happens to be a certified genius."
"That certifiable nutcase belongs with the other certifiable geniuses I invited here to plan out the perfect strategy. What I don't need right now is his maverick ways and convoluted sense of humor."
The woman pinned her host with a look from her golden-brown eyes and resisted mightily the urge to laugh when she noted the carefully hidden panic swimming in his gaze.
"You're worried."
"Of course I'm worried. A decade of waiting and he's risking everything. What do you think will happen when that man confronts the child's guardian and simply spits out everything for the heck of it?"
"Well…" a sly smile bloomed once more on her red lips as her eyes swept towards the endless blue skies framed dramatically by the mansions open shoji doors. "Then it will be to our best interest to learn how best to react."