Hey guys,
So I know it's been a long time but I've been busy with life and so forth. Allow me to explain, I guess. In the past two months since when you last saw me, I had a lot of band contests, some voice acting auditions (nothing major sadly but I'm doing a little voice for a fan special for Fire Emblem Awakening), homecoming, met my current boyfriend, marching band ended and well, I've been running a Tumblr. But as you can see, I've sadly had a lot on my mind and to my dismay, this kind of had to play like sixth fiddle to everything else in my life. But today I decided to buckle down and actually finish a chapter.
So this was supposed to just be an introduction for our next duo to join the Alliance, but in the end I decided to nip two things in the bud and introduce both our arc baddie and our next two to join the Alliance. Believe me, I'm just excited to finally do something more interesting with the poison duo, especially because you'll soon see that the entire second arc is their fault. But enough about spoilers, I just hope this introduction to our big baddie will leave the members of the DBR project just as confused and uncertain as I intended you to feel.
And of course as always, if you have a question or critique, profile or are just wanting to talk to me, totally message me on fanfiction or leave a review and I'll get back to you. Because as you guys who've been with me since the first chapter know, this project is just as much yours as it is mine. Hope you enjoy our first step into Arc 2 AKA the Aphrodite Arc.
xKiha
"In other news today, another of those odd statues was found today. This time in the Hokkaido district. Nobody has come forward as the rightful creator of these independent works of art but one thing is clear and that is whoever this artistic spirit is, Hokkaido will soon be decorated by their unique works."
Kimiko had practically cried when this news story was published last week. Not out of fear, but out of excitement. Out of knowing that this possible threat could keep the Alliance together like she wished. Tsumi, hell nobody, knew about this idea of hers, nor her intent on drawing this demon out to give them a new foe. She should have felt in the wrong, but she didn't feel like she had done a thing that could be deemed uncalled for. With Kenja still in the hospital and school coming to an end for the year, she was desperate for something. Desperate for anything that could distract her.
Which was probably why she was currently on a train, her tired partner still blinking sleep out of his purple eyes. The most recent statue had been seen in Sapporo and since it was only an hour train ride, she figured that she would jump on this opportunity and search for this demon herself.
'We aren't going to let him or her get away.' Kimiko chewed her lip as she stared at the photo of the statue that had been sighted in the newspaper. It was funny, the odd creation that was built by stone, it was almost life like. Almost as if a demon itself had been placed inside the stone as some kind of twisted torture. Well, it did look life like in its own way, but it couldn't actually be a demon...could it?
Its eyes were widened and mouth wide open, hands reaching out as if they had been trying to get to something right before they were placed in the stone prison. A true capture of fear in their face that got the poison book reader to quiet as she stared at the photograph and found her heart breaking just at the idea of what must have been happening when this demon was coated by stone and turned into something that the unknowing public figured was nothing but a wandering man or women's way of expressing themselves creatively.
Kimiko shook her head, no longer wanting to stare at the picture and think about it anymore. After all, if it turned demons into statues, why would anybody in the Alliance be safe from meeting a fate just like whoever it was in the photograph?
No, that wasn't important. They dealt with Xenolith! She and Tsumi took down the feared Puppet Master, so they could handle anything that was thrown at them. Yes, this was still a good thing, with T's added strength there was nothing they couldn't do as a team.
.
.
.
"Why are we here again?"
Tsumi clearly didn't like the concept of being anywhere but back home if there wasn't a good reason for it. He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes before looking up at his bookreader who clutched a crumpled up newspaper in her hands. The confused look on her face didn't reassure the child for a moment as he pursed his lips and cleared his throat. "Kimi?"
"O-Oh?" She snapped out of her thoughts, looking to him with a soft sigh. "Well, we are here to investigate those weird statues that have been showing up in Japan. Who knows, this could be the next Xenolith." She laughed nervously, a twinge of excitement in her voice.
"Uh, that's not a good thing...right?" He mumbled.
Kimiko cocked her head, thinking over her words slowly. "No, of course not, it's a bad thing." But he didn't believe her for a moment, bringing himself to nod just because he didn't feel the need to argue with her over something like this. "But, I mean, it's not like we couldn't handle it, the Alliance and the both of us. We handled Xenolith and that whole crisis, so we could do it again."
His brow furrowed, clearly not on the same thought track as Kimiko as he drew in a breath. "Uhm, we did handle it. But barely, remember."
"But we've gotten stronger since then! We've got what Xenolith wanted out of us, the true strength he was willing to kill for!"
"C-Can T really be trusted in something like that?" Tsumi wasn't very comfortable anymore as he stared at his bookreader with increasing worry. "What if he goes ballistic again? He did try to hurt Cheshire." And even then, he wasn't sure if Cheshire was okay with him existing again.
"I'm sure he'd help if we had a big enemy trying to go after us, because he'd see it as a contest and want to come out on top." Kimiko shrugged. "How would you know though? You've never met the guy, have you?"
"No..." Tsumi mumbled with a sigh, being that T was more or less the other him, there was no way he could properly know the other demon that inhabited his body.
"See?" Kimiko said as they left the train station, looking around for street signs. "So you wouldn't know if he'd be in on helping us." She smiled gently, teasingly poking his nose as the child huffed in aggravation.
Why wasn't she listening to him...? Had she gone absolutely mad when he wasn't looking?
.
.
.
"...This can't be right."
Kimiko turned to look at Tsumi with a frown, the demon child swallowing as he looked at the statue before them, seeing the frozen look of fear on his face and those wide eyes. "Kimiko, this isn't just some rocks. He's...He's gotta be alive."
"So you think it really is a demon turning other demons into statues?" Kimiko asked, trying to hide the excitement that filled her body as her partner shook his head. "Wait. Why isn't it that?"
"I don't think they're statues." Mumbled Tsumi, touching the statue and frowning, his eyes widening in shock. "No, no they're not statues. Touch!"
She chewed her lip, reaching out and placing her palm on the reaching one from the statued demon.
It was warm.
"W-What is happening!?" Her heart began to race, no longer excited but instead somewhat horrified. "Why are they warm!?"
"Body heat, Kimi." Tsumi said as he stared into the eyes of the poor stone demon. "They weren't turned into stone, they're just imprisoned in it."
"Are they...are they awake in there?" She mumbled, her blood running cold as she felt her fingers slip between the empty spaces of his hand, as if trying to comfort the terrified thing. "Or are they sleeping."
"Could be either." Tsumi swallowed. "Or it could be like being in Xenolith's psychic world...I've never met a demon who could do something like this, so I'd have no clue what was really happening inside of there."
The brunette nodded slowly. "We're going to have to tell the others, maybe Kesai might know something since he was into the fighting scene before the book battle." Reaching for her phone so she could message Kenja only to catch herself. 'That's right, Kenja's in the hospital...I should let him rest instead of making him worry over a new enemy.'
Maybe this happening now wasn't as exciting as she had previously figured, putting her phone away as she sighed and turned her back on the demon statue. "Come on, Sumi, we need to go home to tell everybody about this...warn those who don't know or try to get answers from those who might."
He nodded, beginning to follow her only to let his focus wander to the park right across the street. To all the little children playing carelessly, unaware of what horror had just been in this area and what it had done to somebody who for all they knew could have been an innocent.
To a little boy, clearly a child who must have been nearing two or just barely two, with messy blue hair and giant brown eyes that seemed to be excitedly marveling both the park and all of the world surrounding it. Wearing a blue shirt with a teddy bear on the left side of the chest, black stretch pants on his chubby legs and brown shoes, Tsumi felt himself smile at the sight of such an innocent little thing.
And apparently, a young woman seemed to agree with Tsumi as she smiled down at the young child. She could have been a model, maybe a goddess, with her big sea green eyes and perfectly curled eyelashes, her hair a light blond that flowed down to her waist. She certainly looked the part of goddess, with a white dress similar to what an Ancient Greek Princess would have worn, along with a golden necklace and the golden olive branches behind her ears and linking in the back of her head. A spellbook matching her beautiful eyes in her hand.
She reached out to the child, seeming to speak gentle words to him and then picking him up. How sweet, she must have been his mother, it made since that such a beautiful thing would have a child like that. Leaving with the child in one arm and the spellbook in the other.
Hold on! Spellbook!?
"Kimi!" Tsumi felt panic surge through him as he pointed to the woman leaving with the child in her arm. "She's taking that kid!"
Right away the bookreader snapped to attention and focused on this. Sure enough, she was holding a spell book and the way she was holding him she seemed to be in more of a hurry than a mother would be when heading home with her child. And the way she dressed made it clear she wasn't native to this land or likely this world at all.
"She's kidnapping him! We've gotta stop her!" Tsumi panicked, pulling on her arm as Kimiko nodded. "Okay! Let's go!"
But it seemed that the moment they started running after the demon woman, she picked up on this and began running herself. The child peered over her shoulder at Kimiko and Tsumi, not seeming all too bothered by the situation which left the members of the poison duo a bit confused. He should have been terrified, right? He was being kidnapped after all.
"That isn't your child!" Kimiko shouted as she continued to chase her. "Put him down!"
"He is mine!" The woman cried, rushing forward into the more secluded streets of Sapporo, her breathing heavy and desperate. Something just wasn't right about this situation, there wasn't something right about this woman.
"Tsumi..." Kimiko halting in her tracks and grabbing her book, the child swallowing before nodding as the book was opened, fingertips running against the sleek pages searching for a spell to solve the issue. "The third spell! Rokuryo!"
The shuriken appeared in Tsumi's hand and the only thing he could do was strike the woman down, growling as he aimed it for her ankle as she ran, still clasping the child in her arms. Sure enough it struck its target and the woman collapsed, turning around so her back hit the ground and the little boy was unharmed. The child clearly startled as the woman panted, whimpering in pain and sitting up.
"Put the kid down!" Kimiko snapped, taking a step forward and clasping her book tightly to her chest. "It isn't okay for you to take somebody else's kid! Put them down and we won't take your book!"
The woman shook her head, holding the boy close to her chest. "No! You don't understand! This child is mine!" Cradling his head to her body as nothing close to a whimper could be heard coming from the little boy. "You can't take my child from me!"
"He's a human!" Tsumi said, taking a step closer to the woman. "You're a demon! Clearly he isn't yours!"
For a moment the woman was silent, shaking her head as she held the child close, kissing his forehead and looking down to the book that she had collapsed atop of when hit by the spell. The little boy moving his head so he could look up at her. "...Mommy? Spell?"
"...Yes, baby, a spell." She nodded, slowly placing the boy on the pavement as she stood up, favoring her right leg due to the injuries on her left ankle. Kimiko frowning when she watched the child pull the book over to his body and open it up. He seemed like his vocabulary wouldn't be that big and yet he was opening this spell book! And...and had he called her Mommy!?
Kimiko didn't have time to think about this, swallowing as she held out her book and braced herself for whatever was about to happen...or might happen...
"Renzikin!"
The woman took a step forward, golden rings appearing around her arms and legs which she seemed to promptly rip from her limbs and throw them at the two with the intent to do damage. Tsumi already horrified by the fact that this woman had a young child for her bookreader. How could something like that be possible! He was too little to understand the violence of such a thing!
"Rerano!" Kimiko cried, their shield being created and beginning to spin around them, blocking out the rings and firing them back at the woman who seemed to snatch the little child up and dodge all of them with incredible speed. The shield fading as the woman glared at them, holding the child tightly to her chest as she glared at them. "You ungrateful monsters." She said, looking to the little boy and smiling. "Suichi, be good for Mommy and show them what we can do to the ground." Suichi nodding unknowingly as he touched the book. "Mayukuzi!"
Without anything else to go by but that it dealt with the earth, Kimiko and Tsumi were left in shock when the woman stomped her foot against the earth and it promptly shattered, stones and shards of the pavement and everything under it was hurled at the two. "You will not take my baby away from me!" The woman shrieked, holding him close as everything was hurled at the stunned poison duo.
"TeoLuposhiru!"
The two halves of the poison duo were pulled out of the horrors of almost being crushed by a mad demon woman's spell by an unfamiliar voice shouting the name of a spell neither had ever heard of before. Was somebody else going to attack them!? Oh god, oh god, this couldn't be happening to the both of them right now!
"Stop this! You're in a public place!" A man's voice shouted.
What appeared to be a huge moon-like shield appeared before the earth, seeming to absorb all of the shards into it before fading away. Kimiko in too much shock to say anything as she looked for the demon woman and child only to find they were gone!
"Where did she go!?" Kimiko shouted, looking around in shock. "They were just there!"
"Where did who go?" The man's voice asked, bringing Kimiko to turn and face him.
The voice belonged to a grown man, almost six feet tall with a muscular and thin build to him. He had slightly spiked up dirty blond hair and currently stern blue-green eyes. His face hadn't been shaven recently it seemed as he had slightly reddish stubble growing on his chin. He was wearing nothing too odd, just jeans and a shirt saying 'Normal people scare me' on it.
No, what caught Kimiko's eye was what stood beside him. It was a snow white wolf, his grey eyes intelligent and knowing but his size unreasonable as his body seemed to be the size of a lion's instead of a usual wolf.
"What were you thinking!" The man said, clearly concerned for the destruction that this strange demon had caused and what easily could have happened here if any bystanders had wandered in if it had continued. "Somebody could have gotten hurt!"
Kimiko was in too much shock to truly listen to the lecture, nodding tiredly. "Yes, yes...but...Thank you."
"Huh?" He frowned, looking at the stunned high school kid before him.
"Thank you." Kimiko said. "Y-You saved us."