AN: I had a lot of fun picking out the names of the OCs that appear in each chapter. Also the details on the Kamiya's outfits, I found a quick list on the internet of common kimono patterns and their meanings and have abused the knowledge ever since (see the bottom for more details).
Two
The day for the Kamiya girl's formal presentation to Seto came quickly.
Gozaburo prepared her bedroom in the same wing as Seto's, passed on her accommodations to his family physician, and oversaw Seto's new lessons in gentleman behavior to ensure no foul-ups.
Seto, of course, passed everything with flying colors. Gozaburo expected no less.
Everything was going completely according to plan.
There was that annoying snot-nose begging for his own piano lessons after he saw his beloved big brother playing the instrument. Gozaburo didn't want to bother, honestly, but decided the extra expense was worth the brat being out of his hair.
Seto seized the opportunity to be closer to the boy, a fact which bothered Gozaburo, but given it kept Seto focused on practicing and not on his silly inventions, he was willing to let it slide.
Instead, he focused his research on the Kamiya family, and most importantly, on the girl he was promising his son to.
The girl's name was Aiko (1), and while Gozaburo had yet to receive more than brief snatches of her voice over the phone, those voice bites painted a promising picture for the future of his plan. Her voice was soft and weak, and she was prone to breaking off a sentence in order to cough or catch her breath.
He also researched albinism, and while what he found was annoying, it suited his plan well. Albino people were often sensitive to sunlight, and were quite often legally blind and suffered from various eye problems (2). All of these were problems easily addressed through simple accommodations, and that also meant he could withdraw treatment as leverage to better control her.
Yes, everything was going according to plan.
So, on the morning of the girl's formal presentation, Gozaburo was sitting in his home office, looking over the last of the paperwork for the business merger, listening to Seto practice the piano - with the occasional discordant plink, plunk from his brother as the little boy tried to chime in - and almost didn't mind it. He was in a good mood, his plan was moving forward flawlessly, and he'd had no more arguments with Seto about his asinine dreams.
The phone buzzed, and Gozaburo answered it.
"Sir, the Kamiyas have just arrived in town," Hobson said over the phone.
"Excellent. Tell them to come to the mansion at once. We've already prepared for their daughter's arrival."
"Understood, sir."
Gozaburo then stood up and left his office. His first stop was to interrogate the head maid about preparations.
"The banquet hall is decorated, just as you asked, sir," she said. "I've finished furnishing Kamiya Aiko-sama's room, including all of the accommodations you requested. The celebratory dinner is almost done, and Amaya just left to pick up the flower arrangements."
"Good. And the boys?"
"Bocchama(3) is practicing his piano piece for the presentation tonight. The little one is with him."
"Tell someone to inform them that the Kamiyas have gotten off the train and are on their way here. I expect their best behavior. Oh, and tell Seto I want him in my office immediately."
"Yes, sir. Right away."
He stopped by the kitchens and the banquet hall mostly to ensure what the head maid said was correct. His last stop was Kamiya Aiko's room. It was a little ojou-sama's dream: a canopied bed of silk, pinkish purple like the dawn, a gold-leaf trimmed wardrobe stocked with beautiful, ornate dresses, a bejeweled vanity table with a mirror, and an adjoined bath with a full jetted bathtub.
Satisfied, Gozaburo went back to his office and sat down to wait.
Only a few minutes later, Seto was walking in, carefully scrutinizing Gozaburo's face.
"As the maids informed you, no doubt, your fiance has arrived in town and will be here in a few minutes. I asked you to come here because I want to remind you of a few things before she gets here."
"I… understand."
"Good. First, I am not blind and know that you aren't entirely pleased with this arrangement. However, your fiance is a guest in this house and I expect you to treat her as such. Second, while I want you to become acquainted with her, it must never interfere with your lessons. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thirdly, tonight you represent KaibaCorp and what it stands for to the Kamiyas. I don't want you dragging our name through the mud tonight."
"I understand."
"Good. Go back to your lessons. I will send someone to inform you when the time has come to meet her."
"Yes, sir." Seto shot Gozaburo a searching look as he left.
He suspects something is wrong. At least my lessons haven't been a total waste.
The phone went off again, surprising Gozaburo.
"Yes? Who is this?"
"It's me, sir," Hobson replied. "The Kamiyas and I have arrived at the gate."
"Good. Have them come up to my office to meet me prior to the welcoming celebration, so the last of the papers can be finalized."
"Understood. I will at once."
"Good."
Gozaburo steepled his fingers and smirked. "This has been so easy so far. By the end of today, Kamiya Group and KaibaCorp will have merged, and the second stage of this plan can properly begin."
There was a knock at his door. "Who is it?"
"Pardon my intrusion, sir," Hobson said, swinging the door open. "Kaiba-shachou, let me introduce you to Kamiya Takagi, Kamiya Rin, and Kamiya Aiko."
Kamiya Takagi was a dark-haired, bespectacled man in a worn suit. His tie, somewhat frayed, was printed with the sayagata (4) pattern. He was pushing his wire-rims up the bridge of his nose as he walked in, finally giving up on straightening them and bowing so fast they almost flew off his face.
"Kaiba-sama, it's such a pleasure to finally meet you," he said with a smile.
"The pleasure is mine, Kamiya-san," Gozaburo replied.
"This is Rin, my wife," Kamiya introduced, prompting Rin to incline her head in a bow.
Rin was brown-haired and brown-eyed, dressed in a pencil skirt and suit coat of her own, her tie threaded with the seven treasures pattern (5) - something Gozaburo found ironic given the Kamiyas were currently dirt poor and crippled by debt. Her hair was cut in a short and sensible bob, bangs pinned back with a bobby pin. "How lovely to meet my Aiko's future father-in-law at last," she said serenely.
"Speaking of which, where is Aiko Kamiya-sama?" Gozaburo asked, looking again to ensure he hadn't somehow missed the little girl in his assessment of the new arrivals.
"Oh, dear," Rin whispered. "My apologies, Kaiba-sama, but because of Aiko's… affliction, she is distinctly uncomfortable meeting new people. Fears they will judge her for her looks."
"She is here?"
"Out in the hallway, at present. Aiko, please come in and meet your father-in-law!" Takagi said.
Slowly, the door edged open again, and Gozaburo heard small, light footsteps enter the room. A pair of tiny black Mary Janes - distinctly scuffed - stepped up behind Takagi's oxblood loafers and Rin's black heels. A pair of dark sunglasses peeked out from between her parents' legs
Then Rin and Takagi stepped aside, revealing Kamiya Aiko in full.
Her hair, falling down to her hips and dangling in front of her face, was colorless, a chalk white. Her skin was a blood-starved pale, her lips thin and white. She was wearing white stockings, but their color wasn't that far off from her actual skin tone. She was wearing a pale-blue dress and gloves, with a white pinafore apron over it, which only added to the shock of her features. She was wearing tortoiseshell shades over her eyes, which she took off to reveal the only splash of bright color on her: her eyes, which were blue, an unsettling, deep blue that called to mind the bottomless abyss of the ocean. Those eyes, squinting without the sunglasses to protect them from the brightness streaming in through Gozaburo's office window, quickly found his, and stared hard at him, eerie and knowing. She could clearly see, although judging how much she was squinting, her eyesight was subpar at best.
However, to Gozaburo, it suddenly felt like those eyes were picking his soul apart.
He saw Hobson, out of the corner of his eye, lower the shutters, blocking the sun. Gozaburo hadn't asked him to do that, nor had the Kamiyas requested it. The old butler's sudden consideration of the Kamiya girl's sensitivity to light was… disconcerting, but Gozaburo dismissed it. Hobson marched to the beat of his own drummer, but he would carve out his heart before turning down the paycheck Gozaburo deposited in his pocket.
"Konnichiwa, Gozaburo-sama," the Kamiya girl said, forcing Gozaburo to focus on her again. Rather than bow as her parents had done, she offered her hand - a very much Western greeting. (6)
"Good to meet you at last, Aiko-chan," Gozaburo replied, shaking off his surprise and accepting the gesture, taking her shaky hand.
The grip that closed around his fingers was far, far greater than Gozaburo expected from such a small, frail girl. The painful, almost suffocating pressure was comparable to a very strong man, no, greater. Aiko squeezed even tighter, as if in warning, before letting go.
Gozaburo didn't want to show that the tiny, supposedly constantly ill preteen child had managed to hurt him with a mere handshake, so he gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to nurse his hand.
"...A-Actually, Gozaburo-sama…" Aiko whispered. "I was wondering why my fiance is not here."
"Seto is currently finishing up his lessons. You will be meeting him at the banquet tonight."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Rin cried. "A banquet in your honor, Aiko? Imagine that!"
"Well, this is a merger worth celebrating," Gozaburo said. "Our companies and families coming together in such a fashion, and I gain such a lovely daughter-in-law? Why would we not celebrate?"
"We simply must prepare, Aiko," Takagi said. "Do you mind if we take Aiko with us back to the hotel? We need to collect her things, and prepare for the banquet."
"Not at all. I know this is a lot to prepare for, and on such short notice, too." Gozaburo forced a smile, trying to ignore how Aiko was staring at him, her gaze strangely penetrating.
I know you're lying, her eyes seemed to be saying. I know everything you're thinking, everything you've ever done, your every secret.
What's to stop me from spilling them all right now?
Her eyes were trained on him the entire time the paperwork was settled.
"We will be seeing you this evening, Kaiba-sama," Takagi said. "Again, we're so sorry for taking off, but we want to ensure Aiko can get settled tonight after tonight's festivities conclude."
"Of course, of course," Gozaburo replied. Takagi and Rin filed out after Hobson.
"Aiko," Takagi said softly. "Leave Kaiba-sama to his work."
Gozaburo looked down to find Aiko staring up at him, something fierce in her gaze.
For a moment, her eyes changed, looking almost… reptilian.
Ugly little brat, Gozaburo thought. Nosy, too. Stop staring at me like that!
Aiko then turned and trotted after her mother, her long white hair the last thing to disappear from his view.
Gozaburo took a breath before finally chancing a glance down at his hand.
His fingers were bruised, already turning nasty shades of green, yellow, and purple.
There is no way a frail little girl did that, the more logical part of him argued.
But logic couldn't argue with reality. He'd had no bruise up until that little brat had shook his hand, and now, there the bruise was, staring him in the face, mocking him.
"Sir? I saw the Kamiyas leave with Hobson, is everything alright?" Roland, his right hand man, asked anxiously.
"They wanted to prepare for the banquet, Roland," he said. "In the meantime, bring me a first aid kit. Now."
"Sir?! What happened?!" Roland asked.
"A little girl with Western standards of decency and an infuriatingly strong grip," Gozaburo growled.
"Sir… did… ojou-sama do that?" Roland asked.
"I don't pay you to ask questions, Roland. Get me the first aid kit."
"Right away, sir."
Gozaburo huffed as Roland disappeared to go fetch the wayward item.
Something's off about that girl. And I don't like it.
:::::::::::::::::::::
"She was here?" Seto asked.
"Yes," Roland said. "Her parents had to settle some things, like the dowry and the company merger itself."
"But she's not here now."
"Yes, she left with her parents to collect her things from their hotel room."
"Did you see her? What does she look like?"
"She's definitely something. Her handshake gave your old father a bruise."
"She bruised Gozaburo's hand?" Seto asked in surprise. His stepfather was the furthest thing from feeble.
"Somehow. I saw the bruise. Nasty thing covered half the back of his hand and a portion more of his palm."
"A little ten year old girl did that?" Seto asked.
"Apparently," Roland said.
"Do you know anything else?"
"Just a bit. What did Gozaburo-sama tell you about her?"
"Just that she's Takagi Kamiya's only daughter, and the marriage is to solidify a company merger so that the Kamiyas get their stupid debts figured out and the Kamiyas' popularity will make me more "acceptable" to the upper class."
"That's not much," Roland muttered. "Here's what I know. The Kamiyas accepted at once because this daughter is unlikely to be married to anyone else."
"Why do I get last pick then? Why is she last pick, for that matter?"
"Well, the main issue people have is that this daughter is albino. Born with it. The point is she looks strange, and that's not exactly something upper-class people are looking for in a bride. The other is that she has a whole slew of health issues. Poor constitution, constantly getting sick, sensitive skin, bad eyesight, the works. All the maids had to go through a quarantine just to keep their jobs."
"Sickly and albino? So why does Gozaburo think she'd be suitable for me?"
"You never struck me as the type to care," Roland replied.
"I'm not, but I know Gozaburo is. The man is the poster-child for 'Darwinist sensibilities'. He watched Star Trek and took the Klingon way of doing things as a manual of conduct."
Roland laughed. "I can't say why he's doing it either, but she definitely earned his respect - if not his ire - by leaving his hand bruised."
"Well, whoever gets to him is alright in my book," Seto replied, shutting his pencil case.
"I'm glad to hear that."
"Where's Mokuba?"
"The maids are dressing him up for the banquet tonight. I didn't want to spoil their fun, so I let them go ahead."
"My brother is not their paper doll," Seto replied stiffly.
"I know, I know, I'll get them to stop. At least it keeps him out of Gozaburo's way while Gozaburo's still upset about being injured by your ten-year-old blushing bride-to-be."
"At least."
Roland stood up and gave Seto a little salute. "Hang in there," he said.
Seto held up his hand in a stiff wave as the man left.
Seto frowned, standing up from his desk and walking to his bedroom balcony, pushing the double doors open. He leaned on the balcony, barely taking in the sunset, instead being wholly absorbed in his thoughts.
He had only done cursory reads on albinism, and not nearly enough to form a concrete opinion on what it meant for his fiance to have it. The only thing that popped into his head was 'white hair and possibly red eyes, prone to having eye problems', which was hardly a complete picture to act on.
What was strange was the fact his strength-obsessed father had gone out of his way to select the weakest girl possible to be Seto's bride.
Albino, which always came with a slew of health issues, but also in constant poor health and almost always sick, in need of a quarantine? She would be lucky to reach adulthood still able to leave the house. The likely thing was she would be on bedrest for the majority of her life. If Gozaburo wanted to get Seto hitched for the sole purpose of parading him and his bride around like amusing pets (as was Seto's most prominent guess for why he would spring an engagement on him like that), why choose one that needed a laundry list of precautions to even go outside?
Seto was startled out of his musings by a strange sound.
Closing his eyes and listening intently, he decided it sounded like… a voice.
Someone was… singing.
He walked from one side of the balcony to the other, trying to pinpoint where the haunting tune was coming from.
The music slowly got louder, until Seto could finally make out the words.
Which were… pretty much nonsensical, if not a nice literary reference.
"Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble! Double, double, toil and trouble! Something wicked this way comes!" (7)
All to a swooping, strangely jaunty tune in minor key right at home on a Halloween ambience mixtape.
Seto walked back to the center of the balcony, all thoughts of going back in to finish studying gone, replaced with a burning need to know who on earth had braved Gozaburo's considerable security and climbed the garden wall just to waltz around singing lines from Shakespeare.
The voice paused, presumably to catch its breath, before continuing.
"Eye of newt and toe of frog! Wool of bat and tongue of dog! Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting! Lizard's leg and owlet's wing!"
The voice sounded high, definitely female… a little high to be a grown woman though.
A little girl?
What in the world was a little girl doing at five o'clock in the evening, with night coming on, parading around Gozaburo's garden singing the witches' spell from the Scottish Play for? Did one of the gardeners have a daughter? He didn't think so, but he didn't exactly go out of his way to get to know the staff. They were just extra eyes Gozaburo had around the mansion to keep him in line, after all.
Finally, the person came out from behind the line of trees obscuring roughly half of the garden from sight from his balcony.
It was a small child, though whether they were male or female was hard to deduce given they were wearing a very masculine-looking military jumpsuit, complete with a navy cap pulled tightly over their head. The person twirled in a circle and launched into the next refrain of their little made-up song.
"Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble! Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble!" the voice repeated, rising in pitch and volume.
Seto didn't want to say anything (he technically wasn't even supposed to be out on the balcony, and he wasn't taking any chances), but another part of him was screaming at him to get the person's attention. Was this person somehow mentally ill? Could they not comprehend the danger they were in? Gozaburo had the best, most ruthless security team in the world! Being a child wouldn't save this person from getting a beating or worse.
"Eye of newt and toe of frog! Wool of bat and tongue of dog! Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting! Lizard's leg and owlet's wing!" the person sang, before repeating, in a higher key and more frantic, "Double, double, toil and trouble! Fire burn and cauldron bubble! Double, double, toil and trouble! Fire burn and cauldron bubble! Something wicked this way comes!"
The person stopped, visibly panting as if it had taken all their effort to put on that strange little performance. Seto found himself clapping, in spite of his resolve to stay quiet and avoid drawing attention to himself or the stranger.
The person spun around, looking up at Seto in surprise. Even from his high vantage point he could see the person's eyes, a deeper, more vivid cobalt blue than his own.
"Sorry!" Seto called down. "I didn't mean to scare you!"
The person's eyes narrowed, and then they darted for the tree right next to the balcony. In an instant, they had climbed (or had they jumped?) to the branch level with the balcony and were squinting at Seto intently, as if trying to extract his thoughts with sheer willpower. Seto guessed the person was a girl, but the outfit seemed selected to make telling that as hard as possible.
"You… are Seto Kaiba?" she asked.
"I am," Seto replied.
"Gozaburo Kaiba's son?"
"Yes."
The girl looked hard at him, a look like, 'I'll gut you if you're lying to me.' "I need your help."
"What do you need me for?"
"Come with me and find out."
"My stepfather told me not to go running off with strange people," Seto retorted.
"Do you always do everything your stepfather says?" the girl accused, her voice sharp.
"No!" Seto said defensively.
"Good! Now, come on!" the girl said, her demeanor immediately turning bright again.
"W-wait, what-?" Seto began, only for the girl to grab his hand and yank him up onto the tree branch as if he weighed less than a feather.
"Follow me!" the girl whispered, before clambering over to another branch that jutted out over the roof.
"Wait a second-!" Seto called.
"Hurry! We haven't got all evening, y'know! Don't you have some fancy party you've gotta be at?"
Seto groaned and followed her along the branch.
I can't believe it. I'm following a weird girl in military getup onto the roof of my house to do who-knows-what.
Clambering up onto the roof, he looked up to find her already on the peak of the roof.
"Come on, let's go!" she called.
Seto groaned under his breath and followed her up onto the peak of the roof, then over it. She dropped onto a tree in the front yard and beckoned for him to follow.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute! You want me to leave the mansion grounds?"
"We won't be going far, trust me!" she called back. "Now are you coming or not?"
Seto sighed. He was more than tempted to turn back, but the one piece of advice from his late biological parents he hadn't thrown out the window yet was the art of chivalry. Gozaburo apparently assumed he, as a poor uncouth orphan, knew nothing about the subject, but he was capable of being a gentleman.
This girl needed his help, and even a mentally ill girl in a full navy jumpsuit who liked climbing on mansion roofs was a lady and should be treated as such.
Of course, Sato Ryuunosuke likely had never been compelled to follow a strange girl who recited stanzas from classic literature out of his yard as night was falling when he said that.
Dad, I love you, but your advice to never ignore a woman in trouble is really backfiring in my face right now.
He followed her into the tree, then down to the ground.
Seto expected them to immediately get caught, but he had to give the mysterious girl one thing: she knew how to be stealthy. She seemed to have a sixth sense for where the guards were and their movements, and it was no time before she was helping (hauling was a better word, actually) him over the garden wall to the ground.
How on earth is she so strong? The navy uniform she was wearing hid her figure well, but given how it bunched up at the shoulders and wrinkled on her torso, she had to be pretty small. So how was she effortlessly picking him up and pulling him around as if he were less than half her size?
The girl beckoned for him to follow her up another tree, then over another wall, then onto another tree, then across rooftop after rooftop.
Seto was thoroughly exhausted when she finally gestured for him to stop, at the edge of a massive skylight. He had been, as his mother said, "quite the monkey" when he was little, but it was beneath a Kaiba heir's dignity to climb around in trees like a squirrel, so Seto hadn't done very much of it since being adopted. Now, as he doubled over to catch his breath, he realized he was quite out of practice.
"Okay. What do you want?"
"Look down there," she said, gesturing through the skylight. It looked down into a ballroom full of guests.
"One of those people has something they stole from me. I want you to help me get it back."
"So you want me to break into this house?"
"Not break in! You're Gozaburo-sama's son! They're bound to let you in!"
Seto wanted to point out how hair-brained that was, before he huffed and climbed down from the roof and the nearest tree. Straightening out his clothes, he sighed.
"Excuse me," he said to the usher standing outside.
"Yes? What is-oh!" He bent down and stared hard at Seto. "I recognize you from the papers! You're Kaiba-sama's son!"
Seto cleared his throat. "Yes, I am. I think I might have left something at this house the last time Father brought me over for a business dinner. At least I think it was this house. Do you mind if my friend and I look around?"
"...Uh-um… not at all, go right ahead!"
"Told ya!" the girl whispered as they entered.
"Yeah, don't remind me. Just tell me which guy it is, so I can go home."
"He's in the ballroom, come on!"
Seto followed the girl into the ballroom, the both of them slipping into the room in a crowd of people also entering.
"Where's the guy?" Seto asked.
"That guy, there," the girl said, pointing to a man sitting in the corner with a briefcase. The man looked barely interested in the party going on around him. Seto frowned. Something seemed… off about the guy. The harder Seto stared, the more the man's features seemed to blend together and slip out of his memory.
"What do you want me to do, just walk up to him and demand it back?"
"Offer him a diaha, a battle of wits and magic! My precious keepsake as the stakes!"
"A… what? Now I know you're crazy-!"
"Just do it, he's going to know what you mean!"
Seto huffed. "Fine, I've gotten this far. Hey! You there!"
The man jerked to awareness at the sound of Seto's voice. "Huh? Whaddya want, kid?"
"My friend says you stole something from her!" Seto said sharply.
"What are you talking about? Go run along and play somewhere else, kid!"
Ugh, people are staring… Guess I've gone too far to turn back now…
"Listen! I challenge you to a diaha!"
The man's eyes narrowed.
He definitely knows what that means. Is that some kind of code word or something?
"The stakes?"
"Whoever wins gets what you stole from my friend!"
"Hmm. Fine. I've got nothing to do at this party anyway." To the staring, surprised guests, he said, "Go back to your partying, alright? This is between the boy and me!"
Slowly, the crowd of people broke up into little knots of friends drinking and talking.
"Let's take this into my room," the man said, picking up his briefcase.
Seto swallowed his anxiety and followed the man into an ornate bedroom. The man set his briefcase atop the table and opened it.
Seto recognized what was inside the briefcase immediately: rows upon rows of Duel Monsters cards!
Is that what a diaha means? Just a weird way of saying a game of Duel Monsters?
"Since I doubt you have a deck good enough to pose a challenge to me," the man sneered. "Here, take your pick."
"Of… all of these?" Seto asked in amazement. There were some of the rarest, top cards in the game in there!
"Whichever you want. Just make this quick, I have places to be tonight."
Seto grabbed the best cards he could see, but he unfortunately had no idea what were the best combinations against this guy.
What am I getting into? This guy is most likely good, and I've never played Duel Monsters competitively before!
"Hey!" he hissed at the girl. "Now what do I do!?"
"You should-" the girl began. The man snarled and grabbed the girl by her neck, throwing her to the ground and punching her across the face.
"Oi! No back-seat Dueling, you hear, you little runt!?"
Seto's blood boiled as she lay crumpled on the ground, nursing her face.
The girl frowned, her strangely deep eyes boring into him. "This is the only advice I can give: conquer yourself."
"Wh-what? What do you mean, conquer myself?"
"I'm sorry, Seto. That's all I can say."
"But I've never played against a professional before!"
"You can do it, Seto," the girl whispered. "It's in your blood. It's in your soul."
"Shut up!" the man shouted, kicking her hard in the stomach, hard enough she dry-heaved and her face turned sickly green.
Seto had never felt more furious in his life. He almost imagined fire rising up from his skin as he glared at the man across the table from him. Something about the man infuriated him, rubbed him the wrong way in all the worst ways.
And that girl hadn't deserved anything like that beating.
"Leave. Her. Alone," he growled.
The man sneered. "Let's get this over with."
"Duel!" both of them shouted.
AN: Who do you think the strange man is? Come on, show of hands!
Anyway, I had too much fun researching this chapter.
(1) "Kamiya", from the sources I could find, means "Valley of the Kami/Gods", which I thought was way too fitting considering how I portray Kisara (or rather her reincarnation Aiko) as an eldritch god. "Aiko" means "loved child", and as a bonus it ties into the meaning of Kisara's name: in Arabic Kisara means "beloved".
(2) All of the things listed are problems faced by albino people in real life. In reality, Aiko got off easy that she's able to see at all.
(3) "Bocchama" is a common honorific of address for a young heir of a wealthy family group or enterprise - but not royalty. Usually translated into English as some form of "young master" or "young lord".
(4) the sayagata pattern is a pattern representing harmony and love, often used on kimono and obi as a prayer for good luck.
(5) the seven treasures or shippo pattern refers to the "seven treasures" of Japan, a group of seven precious or semiprecious stones with special meaning.
(6) Handshaking is a greeting brought over by Westerners from what I could find. Of course, a lot of Japanese people use it, but Gozaburo would probably be surprised that Aiko, a little girl from a reclusive and old Japanese family, would be familiar with it.
(7) The song here is a specific rendition of Double Trouble, the song that the Hogwarts choir sings in HP movie 3, that I found through music searching, but, as Seto notes, the words are from the Scottish Play. The song was stuck in my head, and I had to cement the mysterious girl's eccentric personality and vaguely magic connections.