Disclaimer: KHR + Me = Not mine
Selina's P.O.V.
"Tell me again, why are we doing this?"
"The old geezer," Anrya simply replied with a look of distaste on her face. We were all outside in the front of the house standing stock still. Thirty minutes has gone since we first stood.
-About five weeks earlier-
"Ah, another great day from school," Crystal said dryly as we all rode and sometimes walked our bikes up the mountain.
"Hey at least we didn't have another encounter with Ada that was as bad as yesterday's," Anrya said.
Today was the second day we had gone to school in Ichimu. We all went up the mountain towards our base, a bit tiredly due to the uphill. All of us were eager to get home and rest, but little did we know we'd be confronted with a surprise.
"We're back," Anrya announced as we got inside. Walking inside, she suddenly stopped short and briefly greeted an old man who sat in the living room with Zero, Ren, Ace, Gris and Gray.
"Who's that?" Esa questioned. I briefly wondered if the old man was someone's grandpa, but that thought was ruled out with what Zero said next.
"Hmhmhm~ I see you're back from school. Well, we have a special guest from the mafia here, Isamu Hiroshi-sama, so I hope you provide good hospitality while he stays here," Zero said.
Anrya looked like she was about to say something, but decided not to say it. Instead, Anrya went up to the old man Isamu Hiroshi, greeted him once again, and introduced us to him. "Hello Hiroshi-sama, it's nice to have you here. My name is Anrya and behind me are my guardians." Turning towards us, Anrya said, "Why don't you guys introduce yourselves?"
So one by one we introduced ourselves. When it was my turn I said, "My name is Selina." At the end of our introduction, we all dispersed to our rooms. As I headed upstairs, I noticed that Anrya had stayed behind to talk quietly to Zero. From the looks of it, she looked annoyed. Curious, but not interested enough to stay behind, I walked upstairs to my room.
After our first encounter with Isamu Hiroshi-sama, our week continued smoothly. Besides the fact that the old man stayed in our home and was constantly around us, everything was normal…to the Pericoloso Family standards at least. Every morning we'd wake up around 5 a.m. and do our hour of exercise with Ace. Then we'd go to school like we'd usually do and hang out a bit. School was ok so far. We've had some minor encounters with Ada, but other than that, we didn't meet her too much since she went to Ichimu High School. As of those who did go to our middle school, all our "school guides" seem to stick to us a lot. Hibiki and Hikari were chatty as usual, Akane was quiet, Hiroto continued to regulate the school rules and even pushed us to join a sport or club, Kaede and Naboru—well, they were Kaede and Naboru. After school ended, we headed home like we usually did. Again I would see the old man Hiroshi-sama hanging around, and I would wonder why he was always looking at us. One day I found out why.
We were all coming back from our second week of school. It was a Friday, and we were all happy for our weekend coming up.
"Kya~! Finally, it's the weekend," Crystal said in delight, "We should all go to the mall on Saturday!"
"That seems like a good idea," Esa said.
"If we do go, then I guess we can invite some of our friends from school to come with us," I said. "I know Hikari-chan would love to go clothes shopping, and Hibiki would go for the bookstore."
"Erm, I don't think Akane would be the type to go shopping…" Anrya said with an uncomfortable look.
"Yeah, I don't know if Hiroto-kun would be the type to go shopping either," Crystal replied. Jasmine nodded in agreement.
"I guess you're right on that part," I agreed. Akane and Hiroto-kun didn't seem quite that type. I would feel bad if Akane just followed after us quietly while we all enjoyed our time. As for Hiroto-kun…well I didn't know him that well.
"That would mean that Kaede and Naboru are coming too," Esa said.
"Do you think they would come?" Jamine asked.
"Definitely," Esa answered. "I mean, Naboru may not want to, but Kaede would. Either way Naboru will come…against his will maybe, but he'll come." Esa shrugged with a detached look of pity.
I gave Esa a questioning look.
"Kaede would definitely drag Naboru (like it or not) with him to the mall with us. My guess is that he'll go straight to the gaming section, the music section, or the manga section of the bookstore," Esa said. Then making a face, Esa said, "If Naboru isn't entertaining enough for Kaede I have a feeling he'll drag me with him too."
"Looks like someone is popular with the guys," teased Crystal. "Not only do you have Rai, but Kaede and Naboru too~"
Esa jabbed Crystal on the side. "Oh shut up. They're just friends-ish."
"Oh? What's the 'ish' part?" Jasmine also teased.
"Oh for goodness sake, it's only been two weeks of school and you guys are already saying this?" Esa huffed, but we could all tell she knew we were just teasing her.
Joking around, making half-planned plans, and walking, we soon got to the front door of our home. "We're back," Anrya announced into the house like she usually did.
"Hello children," said Hiroshi-sama said as he sipped tea. Anrya greeted him politely and excused herself. We did the same.
"Ah, you guys are back," Ace said. His green hair was wet and a towel was around his shoulders. "It sure took you guys long."
"What are you talking about?" Anrya said. "We always come back at this time. Gray and Gris arrive about fifteen minutes before us, but that's because they have a motorbike."
Ace thought for a moment. "Oh, I guess that's right. Must've just been…" Ace's voice trailed off, then with a smile he said, "Ok, got it. Never mind~" We all gave him a questioning look. "Well I have to say that I have good news."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Today I decided that we were going to start our combat unit."
We all stared at him. That was the good news? I wasn't so sure how I felt about this unit since I wasn't much of a fighter.
"Che, complete nonsense," said Hiroshi-sama quite suddenly. Surprised, we all turned to look at him. "The mafia of this generation—" Hiroshi-sama shook his head. "—quite pathetic. Since the day I got here, I have seen no such mafia-like activity or any serious training involved. All I've seen were children leading out ordinary lives as if they were playing House. The young ones in this generation really seem to have lost their touch." Hiroshi-sama shook his head in disgust.
An awkward silence floated through the room.
Ace then broke the silence. "Well from what I heard from Zero-san and Ren-san, you seem to have high standards Hiroshi-sama," Ace said. "I remember Ren-san mentioning that you as their teacher taught them strictly. But please let me say that you must put into consideration that this family is new and they've just formed."
"Bah! All the more for these kids to learn properly from the basics," Hiroshi-sama growled. "And speaking of Zero and Ren, what have those brats been doing all this time! As my former students they should know better than anyone what skills are needed to form a fine mafia family!"
Eh, students? Fine mafia family? What's gotten into this guy? It hit me then how different Hiroshi-sama seemed. In the previous weeks, Hiroshi-sama seemed like a quiet, watchful old man who didn't seem too associated with the mafia. It worried me then that Hiroshi-sama would feel uncomfortable around a family such as us, but seeing how he was now, I guess I didn't have to worry. Hiroshi-sama was more than met the eye. I suppose in the weeks he had been here, he hadn't just been dawdling around the house. Hiroshi-sama analyzed us quite well, and seemed to have taken note of our behavior patterns. Though I wasn't sure, I believe that Hiroshi-sama must've felt pretty annoyed and disappointed in our family conduct. I guess he really does have high expectations for a mafia family I thought to myself.
"Wait…students? Zero and Ren were your students and—" Anrya shook her head in disbelief. We were all surprised.
More to himself than to the others, Ace said, "I heard a couple of stories about you from Zero-san and Ren-san…from how they fight, I guess you were a skilled master."
Though Ace said so, I doubted a bit that Hiroshi-sama was a great master or such. Maybe back then when he was a bit younger…but now he was old...
Rai, who had lost interest in the conversation a while ago, piped in on the conversation with a statement. "Oji-san, we know training is important, that's why we do it everyday. Anyways, since we have flames now, we can still be awesome even if we lack a bit of training~"
I glanced at Rai. We're not that good Rai-kun…
"Rai!" Anrya chastised with a whisper.
"Why you incompetent little boy! I am not your old man and nor will I ever be, so refer to me properly and accordingly with respect!" snapped Hiroshi-sama.
"Hiroshi-sama, I'm pretty sure Rai-kun didn't mean to offend you," Anrya said politely. "He just wanted to add the fact that the use of flames is an advantage to a person." Then before Hiroshi-sama could outburst anymore, Anrya quickly added, "Of course as you've said, training and self-defense is important too."
"Hmph, of course I'm correct. I know the importance of new discoveries in tactics, powers, and strategies, but I also know the skill needed from the past to make a fine person! If I ignored the fact of either one, I'd be a doting fool!" Then he turned to Rai. "And boy, what you do in the mornings isn't much of a training! Having speed, stamina, power, and such should be a given! What you do to refine it afterwards is what you call training!" Then with a final huff, Hiroshi-sama calmed down. "So Ace, if it doesn't alter the situation too much, I will be borrowing these little kids and shaping them up a bit for real training. Three weeks is all I need. It won't be nearly enough to make them as skilled as I would like them to be, but I'm going to show these young ones a bit of what a real mafia member can do. After that, it's all up to them and you brats to strengthen and sharpen their skills."
Ace nodded respectfully to Hiroshi-sama's request. "A bit of extra training won't hurt, I suppose."
"Good. Then training starts tomorrow!" Hiroshi-sama announced. He then turned around and headed for his room, but before that he said one last thing. "Oh, and for those of you who doubt my skill (I can clearly see the doubt on your faces), do keep in mind that before you judge a book, you should read its contents first." Then with a swift motion of the arm, Hiroshi-sama walked away.
Crystal made a little yelp. We turned to see what the matter was, and saw that the hat she wore on her head was no longer on her head. Instead, it hung on the wall behind us, knife pinning it to the wall. My jaw dropped and the others blanched. Ace only chuckled.
"That's Zero-san and Ren-san's master alright," Ace said. "For a while I wasn't so sure, but from the looks of it, it's him." Ace chuckled once more. "If he wanted to, he could've killed you right then and there~"
"Ace, I don't think that's something to be happy about," I said. "Crystal could've gotten hurt or something."
Ace shrugged.
"Argh! That old man punctured my hat!" Crystal said with a huff. "Now it has a hole in it." Crystal fingered the hole in her hat with annoyance.
"Well at least you're not dead," Esa pointed out.
And that was how our Friday went.
The next day we woke up, and did the usual thing with Ace, and since it was the weekend, we got to meet Hiroshi-sama real early.
"Now all you little brats listen up, I'm going to teach some basics needed in combat," Hiroshi-sama said gruffly. "We're not going to get into real combat due to time constraints (and that's not my job, it's the others'. Plus I wouldn't want to be teaching such incompetent brats such as you kids.), but I will be training you in the skills of combat. First of all, note that combat is not just a physical battle, but a mental and an emotional battle as well."
Rai raised his hand.
"What!" Hiroshi-sama snapped.
"Um, how is combat an emotional battle too? I mean I understand the physical part and a bit on the mental part (since sports are like that too), but no one really loses a fight just because they get mad or something. I've seen plenty of fist fights and stuff at school, but I didn't see how emotion had anything to do with it (unless that was the reason the fight was started)."
"Fool! Don't go mixing your childish skirmishes at school to real combat!" Hiroshi-sama said. "What they do there isn't even worth being called a fight; they're just brats getting angry over trivial matters! Their fights have no skill or thought process whatsoever! Fighting and combat is not the same thing. Also, to answer your question on emotional battle, I will say that it is relevant to combat. If you let your emotions get in the way of combat, you are most likely bound to lose, but at the same time, if you can control your emotions, you may be able to use it to your advantage. An example of this is when an enemy gets you to do what they want by angering you or pressuring you. If you do not keep your emotions in check, you'll do exactly what they want you to do. But at the same time, if you can turn your emotion into power or do the vise versa of what they did to you, it'll be to your advantage." Then Hiroshi-sama continued to lecture some more and continued to do so, until Anrya insinuated that they were getting a bit off topic, and that Hiroshi-sama should get back on topic. "Anyways, from observing you brats, I found that most of you lacked some physical abilities. Everyone should try to have a decent amount of power, speed, stamina, evasion, skill, flexibility, accuracy and so on, but some of you do well in one, but not the other. Out of all of them though, I must say that you brats have terrible stamina! How can you last in a battle if you have no stamina? Great if you have speed, great if you have power, but what good can it do if you can't last long?" And Hioroshi-sama continued to rant like this for a while. It wasn't until around 11a.m that our real training began, and let me tell you, that man was a sadistic maniac (the quiet old people are always the fishy ones). Right off the bat, he told us to sprint twenty times around the Pericoloso property non-stop under ten minutes for a warm-up. Now let me tell you, the Pericoloso property is pretty big, plus, I wasn't sure if I could do that. It became obvious pretty soon that most of us had pretty bad stamina because on the fifth time around, most of us slowed to a walked to catch our breaths. Of course that's when the mangoes started to fly. Hiroshi-sama wouldn't have us slacking off on such a small warm up, so he decided that it would motivate us if he threw pieces of squishy mangoes at us. When the mango pieces started to pick up in speed and increased in numbers, we all ran for our lives around the property. Next came the ridiculous exercises. A hundred sit-ups, push-ups, crunches, suicides…it was all a very painful process. Actually by then, I was pretty sure we all wanted to suicide ourselves. Exercise after exercise we were pushed to the limit of our physical ability. This is how our first week went.
When we got to the second week, our training time was more relaxing, thank God. We did some yoga to calm ourselves in mind and body, some relaxation techniques, and a bit of some brutal mental training. Though all this was supposed to be relaxing, I couldn't help but feel on edge with this teacher. It must've been because he continually yelled at us to RELAX while threatening us…
On the third week of our training with Hiroshi-sama, we worked on emotional control. This was what was currently going on. Hiroshi-sama thought it would do us good to control our temper, anxiety, and fear through the training he was currently giving us. The training was called: "Let-the-brats-stand-stock-still-without-retaliatin g-or-flinching-while-I-throw-pieces-of-sticky-mang o-on-them."
"Tell me again, why are we doing this?"
"The old geezer," Anrya simply replied with a look of distaste on her face. We were all outside in the front of the house standing stock still. Thirty minutes has gone since we first stood. Now we were covered in mango slime and feeling quite sticky. A while ago, Rai was the first one to get harshly pelted for showing his restlessness in movement, and for flinching when the mango pieces hit him. Next, Anrya, Esa, Crystal, and Jasmine were pelted for showing irritation and talking back, and most of us were pelted again for complaint and our expression of irritation. Turning my head a bit to the side, I glanced at Anrya for a moment. Though she had had the sense to stop complaining or expressing her irritation long ago, a look of distaste and annoyance was shown on her face. She did a decent job to cover her irritation, but the hard look in her eyes and the tight clenching of her teeth showed her true feelings. Crystal on the other hand, had a full scowl on her face. Esa and Jasmine were shuffling around a bit due to the unpleasant feeling of stickiness on their skin, and Rai was gloomily lying on his stomach. It seemed that Darke and Ryo were the ones to get the fewest amounts of mango pieces on them. Thankfully, we weren't getting hit by mango pieces too often now.
"Now before this lesson is now dismissed," said Hiroshi-sama, "we'll review our previous lessons and then we will end the day." And that was exactly what happened, so by the time we got inside, we were tired, exhausted, and fatigued, physically, mentally and emotionally.
"Ah, it looks like you guys finished training," Gris said as we walked by, "Come to the kitchen for dinner after you have finished cleaning up." So we did that and were pleasantly surprised to find a very nice dinner set on the table.
Anrya's P.O.V.
The aroma in the kitchen was great, and along with the food on the table, things were perfect. I wasn't sure whether the food tasted so great because of the cook or whether it was just because I was so hungry from fatigue, but dinner was great. While we ate dinner a couple of realizations came to me.
"Hey Gray," I said, "Why are we having a feast?"
"Hm…?" Gray crossed her arms. "I don't think you really need a reason, but I guess you can say that since today was our last day of training with Hiroshi-sama, the fact that Hiroshi-sama is leaving tomorrow, and that in America it's Thanksgiving today (though in Japan we don't need to celebrate that but it's a good excuse to eat), we can have a feast."
I grinned at this along with the others. Picking up my utensils once more, I began to eat again. "Wait a second, where has Zero and Ren been for the past four weeks and where are they now?"
"Hm?" Gray glanced at me.
"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Zero nor Ren around while Hiroshi-sama was here," Selina said.
"No wonder the house seemed a bit more peaceful in some aspects," Esa said.
"Hmph, don't care," Gray said nonchalantly. She then continued to eat. For a while, our family ate dinner normally and had some conversations going on when:
Tap tap tap
"Huh?" There came a tapping sound on the window. "What the…" Zero was tapping on the window and waving at us. I got up from my seat and opened the window for him.
"Thanks Anrya-chan~" Zero and Ren slipped into the kitchen through the window.
I sighed. "Couldn't you have come from the door like a normal person would…Anyways, join us in dinner."
"Ah, so you've returned," Hiroshi-sama said. "After running away from me, I wasn't sure whether or not you two brats would ever bother returning. Anyways, I see you've been neglecting your duties. Since you have once been my students, I expected more from those brats over there, but it looks like you haven't taught them anything."
"Hmhmhm~" Zero chuckled. "I don't ever recall running away from you Hiroshi-sama. It is just that I prefer to be absent in your presence." Zero smiled then turned to us. "Congratulations on your survival so far Pericoloso Family~"
What's that supposed to mean…
Review? o3o