Okay, so it's 2014. That means it's been over a year since I last updated...
...I'm really last the point of apologising, aren't I?
This story was my first multi-chapter story on this site, and I swear I really want to finish it some day, but my inspiration is really taking a turn for the worst. I've got this chapter and one that's almost complete, but after that I can't promise when I'll be able to update again.
I'm really sorry about this, but if you guys really want this story as soon as possible, the best way to show me that is either to review or to select 'finish The Light and Darkness Chronicles' on my poll on my profile.
It means a lot to me if only one person is reading this, but here's one chapter and the next one should be up tomorrow or in a couple of days.
Thank you, from Sharkey52.
The Light and Darkness Chronicles
Chapter Seventeen - Origins
Hikaru was drinking coffee.
It was a very nice coffee.
She was currently on her fourth mug of coffee.
She had just finished her fourth mug of coffee.
"More" she groaned, pushing her mug forward towards Taro. Said twin was eating dropped-scones across the table from her. Why was he eating dropped-scones for breakfast? That, my dear readers, is one of the many mysteries of the universe still unknown to man.
"Alright, that's quite enough" Taro decided, taking Hikaru's mug away. But instead of refilling it, he pushed it towards the sink. The glare on Hikaru's face was not pretty. Taro actually cringed as he finished off his dropped-scone. "Look! You've had four mugs of coffee! Do you know how much energy that takes for a solar-powered coffee machine?!"
Apparently not taking in a word of it, Hikaru just slumped in her seat, the blanket falling from her shoulders, her head hitting the table with a final groan of: "Coffee..."
"Seriously?" Taro gave her an odd look "She's as bad as you Hajime." He looked over at his twin. Hajime was snoozing, half-on half-off the sofa. His face was smushed into the floor whilst his legs were on the sofa, cocooned by a blanket. Taro sweatdropped and sighed. "And you're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"
"...ice cream..." was the reply he got. Taro also bashed his head off the table.
"The table's not gonna last much longer if everyone does that" Tsubasa stated, exiting the bedroom. Hikaru had won the battle for the sofa, only for Hajime to drop practically dead on said piece of furniture the second he finished dinner. So the argument had all been for nil and Hikaru had spent the night in Hajime's bed with a bruised knuckle and a sore ego.
"Where's the bathroom?" Tsubasa asked. Hajime suddenly jerked awake, having apparently heard the previous question.
"Oh, it fell over years ago" he stated "There's a bucket under the porch." Tsubasa rolled his eyes and turned to Taro.
"Second door on the right" he sighed. Tsubasa nodded his thanks and then glared at Hajime. But somehow the dodo had fallen asleep again, the top of his head now resting on the floor.
"Does he always do this spontaneously?" the silver-haired boy pointed at Hajime as he said this.
"Every day" Taro nodded, then paused and added "Except Thursdays."
"It's Thursday?" Hikaru groaned, lifting her head from the poor abused table.
"Really?" Hajime blinked awake. He pulled a diary out of his belt pouch and flicked through the pages, holding it in front of his face. "I got Monday."
"Go back to sleep" Taro groaned, throwing a dropped-scone across the room. It hit Hajime in the face and knocked him right back into the land of dreams.
"This seems familiar" Tsubasa sighed, picking Hajime up and dropping him into a more comfortable position on the sofa.
"Geez, I wonder why" Hikaru groaned "Maybe because he's Ginga missing a scarf and a powerful beyblade."
"Don't let Hajime hear you say that" Taro warned her "He takes great pride in his beyblading skills." Hikaru just lowered her head and whacked it off the table again. The table groaned a little from the repeated abuse. Shaking his head, Tsubasa headed into the bathroom.
"Strange crew you're with" Taro commented, starting on his penultimate dropped-scone. Hikaru raised her head and rubbed her eyes, the caffeine starting to work it's glorious magic.
"Yeah" she nodded "An eagle, a talking dog, a long haired moron and a boy who can't sleep through the night." She frowned at that, looking around. "Speaking of Hyoma, where is he?"
"With his kids" the spontaneously awake Hajime muttered (Hikaru was beginning to wonder if was ever actually asleep or jut a really good actor), propping his chin up on the armrest of the sofa.
"Hyoma's fourteen" Hikaru frowned "He doesn't have any kids."
"Really? Then who're they? His nephews?" Hajime lifted on arm and pointed towards the door. As Hikaru listened, she heard two sets of giggling outside.
"Huh?" she stood up, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders completely, and walked over to the front door of the cottage. Opening it, she got a surprise.
"Aren't those the orphan kids from yesterday?"
Sure enough, the orphans were there, standing either side of a smiling Hyoma, excited looks plastered on their faces.
"Again! Again! Again!"
"Pwease Oma, pwease!"
"Okay! Okay!" Hyoma laughed, twirling Aries' beyblade between his fingers. He clicked it into the launcher and let it rip. The beyblade spun in a circle around the three or four times before returning to Hyoma, spraying grass into the air as it went. The kids found this highly amusing, this faces stretched into enormous beams of delight.
"Looking to adopt Hyoma?" Hikaru called teasingly. The lilac-haired boy turned to face her, holding the little girl's hand whilst her male companion went to run in the circular track Aries had spun through.
"Oh, good morning Hikaru" the fourteen-year-old smiled "I don't think you've met my little friends."
"No, I don't think I've been given the pleasure" Hikaru said rather sarcastically, but Hyoma evidently didn't pick up on that.
"Well, that's Kazuki," Hyoma explained, gesturing towards the dark-haired five-year-old "and this is Sachiko." He placed his hand on the shoulder of the blonde girl, who was now sucking her thumb. "They're siblings."
"I would never have guessed" Hikaru sighed. 'Actually, I probably wouldn't have. I mean, they hardly look alike. Sachiko doesn't even look Japanese.' She ran a hand through her blue hair, and then stopped. 'Well, I suppose I can't talk.' With a sigh, she sat down on the wooden porch, letting her skin soak in the sunlight and the children and Hyoma's laughter fill her ears.
'Things couldn't be better' she thought. Then she stopped and frowned 'Well, they could...coffee...'
Hikaru smiled as she watched Sachiko jump and land on Hyoma's back, dragging him to the ground. Kazuki promptly proceeded to jump on Hyoma as well, the pair successfully pinning him down.
"Something funny?" Hikaru turned in her seat and saw Tsubasa emerge from the house, holding some sort of touchscreen device.
"Just watching Hyoma get beaten up by a bunch of five-year-olds" Hikaru smiled "Whatcha looking at?"
"I'm just looking up Hyoma's family tree, see if these nightmares have been inherited" Tsubasa explained, sliding his finger across the screen of the device "But it appears the only thing he inherited was a barrel-sized dose of bad luck."
"What?" Hikaru blinked, standing up. Tsubasa tapped the touchscreen.
"Listen up" he said, reading the screen "Hyoma Hiama Hayden, 14 years old, born on the20th June. Parents: Satoshi and Aimi Hayden. No siblings. Orphaned at 10 years of age. Lived alone ever since."
"Any family?" Hikaru asked.
"That's where the bad luck sets in" Tsubasa continued "Had an aunt, uncle and cousin that lived in Sendai. The aunt and uncle drowned in a boating incident when Hyoma was three; the cousin, Riku, died in foster care of meningitis a month later. His father's parents were killed in a Tokyo car crash before Hyoma was born, his mother's father died of a heart attack when he was six and his respective grandparent, his only surviving relative, lives in a mental care home in the far south. He has no one."
Hikaru opened her mouth to say something, but found she couldn't and just closed it again, forcing the tears back. She quickly turned her head away so Tsubasa wouldn't see her cry. She hadn't cried since her mother died.
"I guess I'm lucky" she breathed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
"How come?" Tsubasa asked. Hikaru took a deep breath to calm her emotions before continuing.
"I... You and Hyoma are...orphans. You really have no one, and you've both coped with it. You haven't just given up - you've strode forward and tried to make better lives for yourselves" she swallowed. "And then there's me - I may have lost my Mum, but I try and make myself an orphan as much as possible. I hated my Dad. I wished he was dead too so I could be an orphan. I thought orphans got more pity, they were better off. But now I realise how selfish I was."
Tsubasa paused for a long time before saying: "Well, it's not too late to make a start."
"No" Hikaru shook her head "The bond's broken. It snapped when I left him to travel with Aquario. He won't want me anymore."
Without any warning, Tsubasa grabbed her arm and forced her to turn around. Yelping with surprise, Hikaru didn't have time to dry the new tears. She was trapped in Tsubasa's golden-brown gaze.
"If he is your father," he said, rather quietly "he'll take you back without a second thought."
Hikaru swallowed. "Tsubasa..."
"He will, I know it" he smiled down at her "Now come on, dry your eyes. If Ryo found out you were crying, he'd be crying with laughter!"
"No!" Hikaru wrenched her arm out of Tsubasa's grip and furiously wiped her eyes with her sleeve "Don't you dare even think about telling him Tsubasa!"
"Alright! Alright!" Tsubasa held up his hands in mock-surrender "That's more like the Hikaru I know." Hikaru chuckled despite herself.
"So, anything else you came out here to say?" she asked.
"Actually, yes" Tsubasa nodded "I didn't look up Hyoma's family tree just for that reason."
Hikaru raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"It was something Hyoma said to me last night..."
"Hyoma?" Tsubasa rolled over in bed to face the other bed. The moon was spilling through the curtains and he could just see Hyoma in the other bed. "Hyoma! Wake up!"
Hyoma groaned.
"Hyoma, you awake?" Tsubasa tried again.
"I am now" Hyoma sighed grumpily, rolling over to face the silver-haired boy.
"I just remembered. What did you want to tell me earlier?"
"Huh?" Hyoma blinked.
"You wanted to ask me something" Tsubasa pressed, hoping Hyoma hadn't forgotten it.
"When?" he frowned.
"Earlier, when Hajime mentioned the Zebrus myth" Tsubasa tried, getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"When did h—oh~" Realisation broke over Hyoma's face like a rash. "Yeah, I remember."
"But what did you want to say?" Tsubasa asked once again, feeling Hyoma was missing the point; either that or avoiding it. Tsubasa prayed it wasn't the latter - he wanted to believe Hyoma could trust him.
"It's just...where's Hikaru from?"
That was not what Tsubasa was expecting to hear.
"Er...Tokyo?" Tsubasa offered, not really sure. He's never really thought to ask - this wasn't a question he thought he'd have to answer.
"...What about her parents?"
"Her parents?" Tsubasa was beginning to wonder why Hyoma wasn't asking playing 20 Questions with Hikaru. "Er...her dad's a lawyer? I don't know about her mum. She died of cancer when Hikaru was little or something."
"Was she from Tokyo too?"
"Is there a plot to all of this?" Tsubasa frowned, taking in the doubtful look on Hyoma's face. Doubtful of what though?
"Could her family be from Nanami Village?" the lilac-haired boy asked in a voice so quiet it was practically a whisper.
"Nanami?" Tsubasa frowned, trying to work out where he's heard that name before, but when he remembered it didn't help his confusion. "From the legend of Zebrus? Why?"
"Then all of us would have ancestors from those three villages. Koma, Haneko and Nanami. Like the legend, right?"
"Yeah" Tsubasa said slowly, sitting up slightly and giving Hyoma a weird look. "Why?"
"So then our beys - Aries, Aquila and Aquario - they would all come from those three villages too?"
"Are you trying to make a point with this?" Tsubasa asked, now starting to get a little impatient. If Hyoam was going to have a nightmare, fine. But could he at least get a little shut-eye first if it was so inevitable?
Hyoam flinched and rolled over so Tsubasa couldn't see his face. His voice was muffled by the duvet as he muttered: "It's nothing."
"If it's bothering you it must be something" Tsubasa retorted. No reply. "Hyoma? Seriously? No one goes to sleep that fast. Hyoma!"
Nothing. It appeared Hyoma was determined to keep up his charade of being asleep.
Tsubasa rolled his eyes. Whatever. He was too tired to deal with cryptic insomniacs.
"And this just randomly came out of the blue?" Hikaru frowned. "No reason why?"
"No, not at all" Tsubasa shook his head "He just randomly came up with it and didn't feel like explaining. I wake up this morning ready to confront him and he's playing with Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee over there."
Hikaru chuckled. "A mystery, eh?"
Tsubasa frowned and placed a hand to his head. "Mysteries make my head hurt."
"Awww" Hikaru mocked him "Well did you find anything?"
"Other than we all came from one of those three villages and as did our beys, yes" Tsubasa nodded. "I guess you did know Aquario was a family heirloom, huh?"
"I didn't, but it makes sense" Hikaru shrugged. "I mean, I guess it makes sense my mother gave Aquario to me rather than one of my brothers, with me being her only daughter. At the time I thought she just bought it from some shop."
"I just don't understand why he thought this up" Tsubasa shook his head "I mean, he's a smart kid, but I don't know why he would even think this villages thing up in the first place."
"Are you going to try and get it out of him?" Hikaru asked.
"I'm certainly going to try" Tsubasa nodded "Might need some help."
"Interrogation? My favourite game" Hikaru grinned.
"Something tells me Aquario might be offended by that" Tsubasa pointed out. Hilary slugged him on the arm.
"Park! Park!" They looked at the kids - Kazuki and Sachiko - and realised they had left a rather puzzled Hyoma and Aries alone and instead had grabbed the arms of Hajime to appeared to have just apperated outside.
"Hey guys! We're gong to the park!" Hajime declared, he and the kids skipping down the path away from the cottage. "Follow me if you wanna come too!"
Hyoma picked up Aries and looked at the two on the porch. "I better go after them. Are you guys coming too?"
Hikaru gave Tsubasa a look. "This place has a park."
"Apparently so" Tsubasa shrugged "You want to go?"
"Well it beats waiting around here for coffee" Hikaru sighed, bending down to pick up her jacket that she'd set down on the porch.
"We're off to see the wizard! The wonderful wizard of Oz!~" Tone-deaf Hajime sung out as he and the kids continued to skip down the path.
"C'mon" Tsubasa sighed, motioning for the others to follow him "Time, tides, public transport and Hajime are four things that wait for no one."