Toru: don't you ever threaten to go on hiatus again!
Me: hey I'm a writer just like everybody else here on this sight and a writer needs feedback. And it wasn't a threat and it still isn't if I don't get a good stream of comments I go on hiatus. So don't get it twisted.
Toru: *growls* just shut up and write!
Me: remember I own nothing but my own characters.
Previously:
Toru had just finished her training for the day with the warriors and was exhausted. She thought she'd catch a few zzz's before lunch but Chase walked in. Even though Toru's legs felt like lead she stood and bowed to her master.
"Is there something you need Master Chase?"
"You've been training especially hard lately Toru and I think you're entitled to a reward."
"A reward, master? What kind of reward?"
Chase gave a devilish half-smile. "Why the location of your parents, of course."
Toru was shocked. Her parents? After living with Chase for so long she had almost forgot about them. She walked over to the mirror contemplating what her master said. The memories of her childhood came flooding back and with a bad taste.
As Toru looked into the mirror she saw her father laughing at her and the anger over her 16 years of life exploded and she shattered the mirror with her bare hands.
Her hand bleed only for a few seconds thanks to a spell she casted to herself to speed up her healing.
Toru looked at her master with a cold and at the same time excited expression. "So…where to?"
Chapter 16: Getting to Know You (part 3)
2 years ago-Boston, Massachusetts
Toru had arrived in the peaceful city a few hours ago and observed her sisters behavior. Oh she was so excited to see Karen and wanted to hug her but knew she couldn't.
Karen left her high school happy because her Sat scores had come in and she had gotten a high score. She knew college recruiters would be looking at her soon and got into a car she had gotten for her 16th birthday. Toru followed from the rooftops. While listening to Dysfunctional Family by Cinema Bizarre. As Karen approached a red light Toru had casted a spell on Karen's car that ripped the rear ties from is axil. She made sure not to injure her sister but that would keep her occupied for a few hours, long enough to pay her dear parents a visit.
Toru decided to fuck with them before she killed them. Placing brown contacts in her eyes and putting on a long dark wing-unlike Toru, Karen kept her hair long.
Chase had told her the address which her parents lived in now. It was a 2 bedroom house with a big backyard, in a nice neighborhood a great place to raise children.
The door was unlocked and Toru went in. she was cautious the whole time sense she hadn't seen her parents in years. The feeling of excitement was starting to cloud her mind. But it wasn't from nostalgia; it was from the thought of how to kill them.
While Toru was contemplating her mother, Serena, had walked in carrying heavy grocery bags.
"Oh, Karen you're home, I thought you were having car trouble. I was going to pick you up." The mother said.
Toru's head was spinning she didn't even turn around and faced her estrange mother its been so long. She had gotten confused on her resolve. Wait what was she there for again? She was there for something? A family reunion perhaps? No that's not it. A confession maybe. Or she was there to give them a hug and tell them she forgave them. Toru's mind was a twitter with questions she honestly couldn't remember why she was there anymore.
"Karen?" Serena said again.
Toru snapped out of it but still didn't face her mother.
"I took a cab back, mother?" Toru simply said.
"Oh, ok. Well can you help me out with these bags they're a bit heavy." She asked her daughter.
Toru nodded and took the bags from her mother's hands and looked her in the eyes. They say a mother would know her child anywhere but all Serena did was smile and went to the car to get more bags. Toru's heart felt like an ice pic was run through it; was she really that forgettable?
As Toru walked to the house there were pictures everywhere of happy family moments. There was a pictures of the beach, the grand canyon, Karen in a school uniform when she was in 1st grade. Karen, in a dress, standing next to a cute boy for the homecoming dance, and a picture of her 16th birthday party. It showed a large cake as Karen was blowing out the candles surrounded by friends and loved ones.
Toru never had any of that, sure she had Master Chase, Aranea, and Hitomi, but its not like she had a standard childhood, or standard anything for that matter. Toru trained 70% of the time and the other 30% she ate, slept, bathed, or the rarity she visited Aranea. Toru really never did much for herself. She never got a chance to make memories like this, go to school and meet new people, make new friends, have a crush on a cute guy in her class, have family outings, or share things with her sister whom she knew would have been her best friend.
Toru shook her head. There's no point on dwelling, you cant change the past. Besides she's had a pretty exiting life, learning magic, exploring forgotten lands with her master, fight and make friends with demons (yes Aranea is a demon), and a ton of other things that could be only read in books. Sure she would have wanted a family to do normal stuff with from time to time but Toru realized a long time ago that normal has no true definition, her life was normal to her and she wouldn't change it.
Toru placed the bags on the counter and turned on the radio playing We're all liars by Sent By Ravens. She loved this song, her mother on the other hand didn't she found it eerie.
"Karen could you please change that I don't like that song." Serena asked
"Why is that, mother? Does it make feel uncomfortable; perhaps it brings up some bad memories." Toru remarked looking at her mother coldly.
Serena visibly shuddered. "Karen what's with that look in your eyes?" Toru continued to look at her mother intensively. "Stop it you're acting strange, Karen. Did something happen at school?" what was wrong with her? Karen was normally so cheery now she's seems intense.
Toru had the upper hand, time to twist the knife. "No nothing happened and even if it did I wouldn't know."
"Wha-what are you talking about?" Serena asked skeptically
Toru removed the contacts from her eyes. "You see, mother…I'm not Karen"
Green. The only one she knew with green eyes was…"Tor-" Toru thrusted her sword through her mothers chest, clean through her heart. As Serena looked into her long lost daughters eyes that were full of hate and confusion, Toru removed her sword and gently placed her mother on the floor. Her mother was starting to chock on her own blood. But even though her daughter killed her she still looked at her lovingly.
"I'm so s-sorry, Toru. I s-should have believed you when you were younger." Tears were running down her face. "And Toru I forgive you and I…I…" Serena's eyes went lifeless and her body went limp.
"You what? What?! Hey!" Toru shook her mothers corpse but nothing. What she going to say? What it that she loved her?
At the same time Karen and her father Royce had entered the house while the radio music switched over to Dark In My Imagination by of Verona.
"Well her car's out front; I don't know why mom didn't pick me up." Toru heard her sister's voice and ran out the kitchen.
"Yeah its not like her." as Toru heard her fathers voice whatever quilt she felt about killing her mother it wouldn't be there with her father. "Serena! You here? Karen, go check the kitchen."
Karen walked nonchalantly to the kitchen and saw her mothers lifeless corpse laying in a pool of her own blood. Karen screamed at the stop of her lungs and Royce came running in to see his dead wife.
"Mommy! No!" Karen wailed as she sunk to her knees and hugged her mother.
"Fulmen!"
A lightning bolt blasted Royce through the kitchen wall and into the living room. Toru reappeared wielding her sword and her arms covered in her mothers blood. Karen looked at the unknown intruder and was so focused on her eyes she didn't realized that they looked exactly alike.
"Who are you? Why you doing this? Why did you kill my mother?" Karen cried. Toru grabbed her chin and pulled her sister in so that they were face to face.
"Who am I? Why I'm your big sister, don't you remember me?"
"What are you talking about I don't have a sister!" Karen yelled.
Toru's head sunk as she felt like crying; her own sister didn't remember her? Toru looked at her sister with a forgiving sorrow in her eyes. "So he hated me so much that he made the only light I had in this world forget about me. Tegumen catenarum in eam."
Chains magically appeared, wrapped around Karen as Toru walked through the whole in the wall and went to her unconscious 'sire'.
As Karen struggled against the chains she thought about what the girl said. 'Wait did she just call me her light? Someone called me that before but who?' and then it hit her the only girl she knew that called her her light and such emotion filled green eyes.
Toru picked up Royce bye the neck over her head chocking him awake.
He immediately recognized her.
"You!" Royce chocked out.
"Toru!"
Toru looked back and saw her sister who was pleading with her with her eyes.
"Oh so you do remember me, that's good." her older sister said with a smile.
"Toru, please don't do this!" Karen begged.
"You'll have to give me a reason why." She retorted tightening her grip around their father's neck.
"He's our father."
"Wrong on 2 counts. 1: genetically speaking he's not our father, and 2: even if was he's not a true father. Fathers are supposed to be kind to you!" she throws Royce into the wall. "Father's are suppose to protect you!" she punches him in the stomach. "Fathers are suppose to raise you! She kicks him in the face. "I had to look after myself, while he beat me worse than any dog while you were shown affection, then abandoning me to hands that were no better than his and left me there to rot! He saw me as worthless and a abomination." Toru leered over her beaten and bloodied father. "There was only one person who saw something in me the only one who believed in me, and he's the reason I'm here. So it's payback time 'daddy dearest', you are gonna feel every bit of pain you caused me. Don't worry I won't cut any arteries. Don't want you dying to quickly."
Toru grabbed the hilt of sword and proceeded to cleanly yet slowly cut off Royce's leg. He screamed in constant pain as right leg was cut off, and then left leg, finally his right arm. Blood pooled around them and hearing her father's screams of pain was music to Toru's ears.
Tears rolled down Karen's face hearing he father's screams of pain. "Please, Toru stop! This will accomplish nothing. You can stop this and we can leave-me and you together-just like you want right? Just show some mercy, please."
Leave? All Toru wanted was to have her sister back, but she couldn't just leave she was Master Chase's apprentice and she belonged to him and developed feelings for him. He was the whole reason why she was there now. As much as she wanted to she knew she couldn't.
"Mercy is for the weak."
Toru gripped her sword and quickly decapitated her father and dropped his lifeless body on the floor and walked over to her sister who was shivering in fear.
"So what now? You're going to kill me to?"
Toru gently rubbed Karen's face and looked at her lovingly with her green eyes. "Of course not, Karen. You're my sister and I love you so that's why you're gonna live. Live your life how you want; start over, seek revenge, I don't care. Just live."
And with that she was gone. Toru walked out of the city covered in blood and didn't care who saw her. as she reached the outskirts of town Chase was waiting for her.
"I completed my revenge master." She said while smiling.
Chase looked his apprentice with pride, "Well done Toru. Tell me how did it feel?"
"It felt amazing, master. I was able to end their lives like it was nothing. But master now that I've completed my revenge what am I suppose to do now? My whole purpose for going with you was to seek my revenge and now that I have no purpose."
"Your purpose, Toru is to be by my side as my apprentice, to be trained as warrior and a sorceress for the Heylin side, for my use. Do you understand, Toru?"
"I understand. I am yours Master Chase, I am only instrument of your will, think of me as a weapon to be kept at your side and used as you see fit."
"Very good."
(A/N yeah I used a line from Naruto and Teen Titans but I had to the Haku/Zabuza arc is my favorite and Raven's my fav character)
End of flashback
"So there you have it kids, my life story. I don't have the cliché 'Oh my parents died in some tragic accident leaving me an angry child in a cruel world' or the other cliché 'I had no parents to begin with.'" Omi lowered his head. "This would be why I can't stand you brats, especially you!" Toru glared at Kimiko. "You have everything, never really having to work for anything. 'Child without equal', give me a break. Let me tell you all something; you fight for a hopeless world where the rich get richer, the corrupted corrupt others and the poor and weak get trampled on."
Toru left for the night and left the monks a lot to think about.
The next morning the monks were working on the boat to leave. Progress was going well thanks to the tools Aranea sent to the beach.
Toru observed the monks closely see how they work as a team. Raimundo seems to have a problem with anyone wanting to assume authority. Clay seemed the most relaxed as if doing manual labor was somewhat fun-true cowboy. Kimiko was assigned to gather supplies for the trip, which she reluctantly accepted.
"Hey I thought you said we'd all be helping making this ship." Rai yelled at Toru who was listening to Slept So Long by Korn on her IPod as she leaned up against a tree. The dragon of lightning sighed as she pushed against the tree with such force, denting the bark and toppling it. "You said Magic doesn't work here."
"It doesn't." Toru said dryly as she followed Kimiko into the jungle as Omi and Raimundo were arguing. She caught up with the dragon of fire who was gathering food.
"Those berries are poisonous, so you know."
Kimiko gasped as she turned and saw Toru.
"I thought you hated me, why warn me?" Kimiko asked as she walked off.
"I never said I hated you, I just can't stand you. I hated my father; you have to do a lot to me to earn my hatred. Besides I've been coming here for years I know this island better than you do and if you step in the wrong spot or ate the wrong thing you could die and I'll get the blame for it."
Kimiko walked u to Toru, "You know you're not as bad as you try to make yourself out to be."
Toru scoffed. "Did you hit your head or something while you out were here? After hearing my origin how could you say I'm not as bad as I seem?"
"Oh don't get me wrong you're still pretty bad, but you spared you sister and I know you'd never hurt her. Also I think your anger was justified." What did she just say? "You said I never had to really work for anything and that was true only because my mother died and my dad wanted me to have the best. I can't truly understand your pain Toru but I can say that maybe if your father treated you better then maybe you'd be with your sister and fight against evil and be with us as Xiaolin instead of Heylin."
Over the next week the boat was half way finished and Toru was becoming impatient, where the hell was Hitomi?
A spider crawled on her on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Toru smiled and went into the jungle, disappearing for hours.
The others where almost done with the boat another day or two of labor and they'd be out of there. Unknown to anyone Toru was already on a boat home. The spider had informed her that a cat-like woman appeared on the east beach on a boat and headed there.
Hitomi and Toru sailed back to China. As they sailed Toru stared at her empty sheath.
"Sorry about your sword. I would have gone and got it but you know cats and water don't exactly mix." Hitomi smiled trying to make the situation lighter.
"Oh, don't worry about it." Toru held out her sheath and inside glowed. From the bottom of the ocean the Sword of Slayers wiggled of the ocean sand then shot out of the water returning to its rightful place and its master. "There we go. All's right with the world."
Hitomi stood there dumbfounded. "Hang on, what just happened?"
"My sheath and my sword were made on the island and sense they're apart of each other I could call it back anytime I wanted." Toru explained
"So Lord Chase tore me a new one because he thought you couldn't get back, but in fact you could have left anytime you wanted?!" Hitomi was seething she's been yelled at and terrified this whole week since Lord Chase ordered her to bring Toru back unharmed. (Although people should keep this in mind Hitomi has no loyalties to Chase she has it for Toru but it doesn't mean she respects or fears him any less)
"Mm-hm." Toru said smiling.
"Then what was the point of all this?!"
"You knew my plan."
"Yeah, and it failed!"
"True but I had contingencies. I'm never without a plan. 1st there was my pre-contingency plan: the fight here killing them, which-of course-didn't work. My main plan trapping them there, which also unfortunately failed and my contingency plan of: if all else fail listen to the words of Sun Tzu of 'Know your enemy'. I learned a great deal about the monks. They work fairly well as a team but I found aspects in their personalities I could exploit."
Hitomi sighed, hanging her head frustrated "So no matter what happened your plan still worked out in the end. And you told me none this because…?"
Toru looked up and saw the raven looking at her with its black eyes and gave a smirk.
"That's why."
Hitomi saw the bird as well. "So you knew he was watching?"
"I had a feeling he would, although I was hoping he wouldn't I really did want to surprise him. Oh well price of being the 'bad guy' I suppose, we lose sometimes, but there's always tomorrow. Come on Hitomi lets go home."
"What about the monks?" Hitomi asked as Toru was walking to the stirring wheel.
"Their boat should be done soon but by the time their done we'll be back home." Toru jumped to the top of the boat and drew her sword cutting her hand cross it drawing blood. "Aperiesque ostium in mare ad maxime cupio." A blast of light shot out from Toru's sword open a portal that the ship can go through.
Chase Young's lair
Chase watched his apprentice from his all seeing eye. His beast was pleased at what he had just heard.
'Our mate is cleaver. She used everyone around her to see her plan fulfilled-including us.'
'Yes. I would bet once her main plan failed she expected us to send Hitomi to retrieve her.'
'She kept vital information about her sword and contingency plans from Hitomi in case we were watching.'
'Our mate shows great promise. Just by observing the monks I'm sure she's already cultivating a plan to use them to her advantage'
'And her advantages are always to further our own plans. Our diamond in the ruff.'
'A brilliant fighter, sorceress, strategist, and loyal to the end.'
'The perfect one to carry our sons'
Lord almighty I am done! Let the choir play! If you haven't figured out the reason I used 'eyes' so much was because if Toru had brown eyes then none of this would have happened and she would have ended up with the monks. Also yes Toru is sneaky but trust me she's not full of it, like I said last chapter she has a very high IQ and is never without a plan. Oh and spoiler: I did mention the babies thing in chapter…9 and it will come true but I won't say where 'cause honestly I have no idea how long this story is gonna run for so it could take a while. Plez review people. The lack of love could make me not write again and sense school is officially over for me this year and my summer has started that would really suck.