Hello all to the first chapter of my new story! I am Again With This, formerly Airheadninja, and I have been working on this bad boy for a few months now and finally got the courage to post.
Quick note: Later in this chapter there is some implied Japanese, which is written in italics. I only know formal Japanese, so it made no sense for me to write a verbal exchange that would be happening in super informal language.
Without further ado, please enjoy Never About Winning.
-Googled to a New Place-
"Then I got Alexa to yell at Siri, and Siri yelled back!"
The group of teenagers laugh as their friend finishes the punchline to their recent funny Tumblr post on their phone. None, fortunately, take notice of the young woman who walks past them. The woman mutters her disdain for teenagers and for the subject of that particular post but continues to make her way toward her destination. She peeks at her phone for confirmation that Google is keeping her on the right track, dodging other pedestrians on the sidewalk and glancing around for street names. It isn't her first time walking around the city, but she isn't accustomed to it. She is small and alone, though with her disheveled appearance and with it being midday, she manages to escape notice from anyone who would pose a threat. Soon, she passes into the Chinatown portion of the city. Her glances down to her phone and up at street names increase as she continues along, before finally turning down one small alley and reaching her destination.
With a big gulp of air, the woman closes Google Maps and locks her phone, shoving it in her back pocket. Before her is a sliding door of Japanese fashion, on which is printed "SETH MERIDIAN, REIKI MASTER." Taking another deep breath to steady herself and maintain control, she raises a shaky fist to knock. The door clatters and she winces at the loud, ungraceful sound that echoes in the alleyway. Her breathing shallows more and her mind whirls as footsteps approach from behind the doors. They slide open to reveal a young man of Asian descent; whose eyes hold immediate confusion for her.
"Is Mr. Meridian here? I called and set up an appointment…" the young woman trails off, a slight strain in her voice from some unseen conflict inside her. The young man straightens in recognition.
"Oh yeah, sure, you're just half an hour early. Seth-sensei is here, come on in. He probably already sensed you, just make sure you take your shoes off, he's a stickler on that." The young woman enters and does as bid, sliding off her white Toms and following the young man across the wooden flooring to a room closed by more traditional sliding doors, in which the flooring is tatami. She is guided to a cushion at a low table and instructed to wait. The young man pauses briefly to introduce himself as Henry, to which the young woman merely nods. She doesn't disclose her name or speak at risk of relinquishing what delicate control she has maintained for nearly three hours.
Almost immediately after Henry's departure, another man slides into the room, dark-skinned with full lips set in a grim frown, his eyes betraying no emotion other than calm. He clears the length of the room to sit across from the woman in a few steps, his motion fluid and practiced, and the young woman sits up slightly when he holds his hand out despite his neutral demeanor.
"You must be Alexa. I am Seth Meridian. I can feel how stressed you are so why don't you tell me what and when this all started. I have to tell you first, though, that this is one of the stranger cases I've ever heard of."
The young woman, Alexa, shifts her eyes nervously and bites her lip. She knows at least that giving up complete control won't hurt anyone, but whatever it is that is happening is so strange that she can't imagine anyone taking it well. Seth notices her hesitation and finally eases his disposition to offer a smile.
"Do not worry about scaring me. I have seen much, much worse in my time."
This comfort allows Alexa to sigh, with which comes a faint tune and to Seth's surprise, a surge of her energy.
"I'm sorry I didn't talk sooner. I haven't held it in for this long before and I just managed to learn how to control the volume on it. I'm not sure how I convinced everyone that the music wasn't coming from me but I don't want to let it go on until someone finds out. I just started emanating music a couple weeks ago. Whatever song is in my head just comes out. It's never my thoughts or anything, just music. I have no idea," Alexa explains, the music filtering through the air as if they sat in a café discussing mediocre politics over coffee. She winces slightly when she realizes that the song is from Spongebob.
"I can feel that your spirit energy is linked to the music, and it's definitely more energy than a normal person usually has. Have you ever had any experience with the supernatural?"
"…Like ghosts?"
"Yes."
Alexa eases her sitting position to hunch down in thought.
"Yeah, I guess so. Not a lot, just like weird feelings and I heard footsteps and whispers while playing in the really old practice hall. I'm a music major at a university in the next state over. I always just thought my mind was playing tricks on me and I was paranoid," she describes, anxiety making her eyes watery. Although he doesn't show it, Seth notes with amusement that the song she begins playing is the Ghostbusters Theme.
"Then something dire or strange awakened this… ability, that is causing your energy to manifest in a certain way to protect you. What was happening when it began?" Seth prods, successfully distracting her from swirling completely into despair.
"I was in Japan visiting a friend. She's an English teacher there and we had planned it for months. Nothing really bad happened, like we weren't mugged or anything. I got bad feelings sometimes, and then on my last day there the music started up and all the bad feelings became more frequent, but I was a bit distracted by the music. Also, there were a ton of bugs in the city that day, but we were traveling up to the airport and they went away the farther we got, and like I said I was trying to cover my music issue," she finishes, her eyes wandering down to her hands that are wringing around each other in her lap. The music changes to "Carry On My Wayward Son," as Alexa continues to ponder any past experience with the supernatural.
Seth let his neutral, completely vague demeanor sweep over him once again so that she couldn't read his immense intrigue. His mind wanders to an old veteran Reiki master in Japan, the very best in the world, one with whom he had studied for a few years when he was younger. He hadn't ventured over to become her true heir and apprentice a couple of years before due to his contentment with his own mastery of reiki technique. Alexa's story lines up with his own gut feelings at the time, and the rumors of a door to the demon world being opened in a space relative to Japan. Although Seth knew that he couldn't abolish the sudden power she holds, he knows that the veteran psychic in Japan would be able to help develop and control the energy more than he could. While Seth is considered a master, he is aware of his own limits. His own form of reiki technique focuses more on internal meditation and use of his energy to expand the limits of the mind, not for powers that Alexa shows an affinity for.
"Alexa, I have to admit, there is very little I can do for you that you haven't already done for yourself. You were wise to think of coming to me, but unless you want to become the human equivalent of your Google app, I cannot fully help you. However, I can point you in the direction that you need to go. Are you able to return to Japan?"
After a month of begging her parents for financial help and contacting her friend in Japan, Alexa once again finds herself in Mushiyori City, in Japan. Like a true guardian angel, her English teacher friend lied through her teeth to Alexa's parents saying that she needed comforting after a death in the family and the inability to get time off and afford a ticket to attend the funeral. In return, she explained her dire situation to her friend, who needed no more convincing once she gave a demonstration.
She took a couple of days to sleep off the travel exhaustion and jet lag, feeling comfortable enough to do so as the city felt at peace compared to when she had been there last. On her third day, she resigns herself to finally getting up and looking around the city for anything that might point her in the direction of the psychic that Seth-sensei had mentioned to her. While her friend would normally help her traverse the city, she's left to tackle her problem on her own: Her friend is busy with work, having already taken her vacation time during the summer break. Alexa herself was missing school, having frantically called all her professors and counselors to obtain a leave of absence for mental health that semester. It would put her behind and she still had to pay a quarter of tuition, but she had no other choice. Her control over her energy manifestation is much better than it had been, and less stressful on her mind. Although in times of major emotion or relaxation it slips away, Seth-sensei equated it to the focus of driving on a busy highway. The visualization gave her a better idea of how taxing the control would be, in any case.
She has the disadvantage of only an elementary grasp of Japanese and can neither read or speak very well. The one scrap of advice that drives her forward is that she knows the name of the reiki master she is searching for, and she also knows that for simple things, she can say her English words with a Japanese inflection and people will usually understand. Unfortunately, she is horrible at speaking with a Japanese inflection, having taken not Japanese, not Spanish (which has similar inflection), but Russian in high school. Even in that language she had hardly learned anything. As she starts out on the street outside her friend's apartment building, she is filled with a determination to find information on where to find the reiki master Genkai. Seth-sensei had sent her with an address, but both Alexa's friend and Google have no idea where it is. Given that information, she and her friend guessed that it must be in the extreme backwoods.
After stopping for a Starbucks (where Japanese inflection won her a tall black coffee), Alexa manages to stroll along looking for anything and daring to let her senses flow with her energy around her so that she might feel something different. The music may play around her slightly, but if she only relents with the music at a soft volume, no one will think oddly of her. Throughout the hours, she keeps walking around, following advice from Seth-sensei and allowing her sixth sense to guide her. While she had exhibited extreme doubt that she had any such thing worthy of being counted on, Seth-sensei seemed sure that it would help. Eventually, though, after making no progress whatsoever, getting turned around, and absolutely losing herself on the streets, she lets her tiring feet lead her to a park. As she sinks herself down on a bench with shady red-tinged branches overhead, she loses more control of her energy and the music ups in volume for the subsequent energy flare. A frustrated sob escapes with a hiccup from her mouth.
"I have no idea where I am or how to get back, Kelly won't be out of school for a few hours yet, and I haven't found anything. What the hell am I doing here?" she cries weakly to herself, putting her hands over her face to keep other people walking by from judging her. It doesn't matter, as the song in her mind that is playing is at a greatly audible level, thus drawing mutters and stares anyway. Strangely, her energy music fulfills its protective purpose as Alexa doesn't manage to notice when all she can hear is "All By Myself" echoing in her ears. She also fails to notice a black clad stranger drop down from the tree behind her, who stands merely taking in the pathetic woman hiccupping in despair on the bench. Although her energy surges around her, the man is perfectly able to break through the meager form of barrier around her mind and sees that she is searching for someone he knows. This man normally wouldn't give even an iota of a care about anyone else, much less an annoying human woman, but his intrigue is also piqued. He had never experienced powers quite like hers, and though clumsy and raw right now, her energy could be formed into something formidable. Much like two others he found himself to be in league with. More than that, his nap has been interrupted by the combination of the music and the flare of her energy. In the span of time that he stands thinking about his next action, the music changes to a different song, one that was far more depressing and angsty than the one before. Hearing the lyrics spurs the man into talking.
"You're looking for Genkai. Follow me. And stop crying, it's pathetic."
Alexa shrieks in surprise, making the music stutter and her energy gather around her closely. She stands to take in the man, who waits with withering patience as she studies in mistrust.
"How? Who are you?" The amount of suspicion in her voice bolsters it to come out fairly bold. The man doesn't twitch.
"It doesn't matter. Do you want help or not?" His question stands more as a statement, but to his chagrin she doesn't give in.
"I'm not going with you just cuz you know English, wait—how did you even know I'm looking for Genkai? There are too many questions for me to trust you," she responds, a hint of venom in her words that make the man's eyes narrow in what he likes to think of as his trademark glare. Her frown only deepens, her eyes also narrowing. The music appears again, this time her energy taking a more belligerent feeling. Something about "Shellshock" permeates the air between them.
"Whoa is that Hiei talking to a girl? First time I've ever seen that." The tension breaks on the strange man's part, though Alexa still bristles as two boys, one tall in blue, the other shorter in green, join the scene. Even worse, she can't understand anything they are saying, as the stranger in black reverts to speaking Japanese to the newcomers.
"Hn. Do you have anything useful to say or will you always continue to bother me?"
"What?! We were just passing by you shrimp," the one in blue yells, though he is interrupted by his shorter friend.
"For real though Hiei, what're you doing?"
"This woman is looking for Genkai. Now if you don't mind, I'm done being charitable towards idiotic humans."
Alexa blinks and gasps as in that tiny space of time, the strange man in black has disappeared after the short exchange. Her astonishment is immediately forgotten, for her eyes are back on the two boys, who look almost nervous as they mutter to each other.
"Kuwabara you've gotten better at school you talk with her."
"Even though that's true do you really think I know enough English to talk to a gaijin like this?"
"C'mon, soak it up! For once you're better than me at something."
"Shut up Urameshi. Fine." Kuwabara, the tall, orange haired boy in blue walks forward. He stops short seeing, or rather sensing, that Alexa's energy is absolutely ballistic at this point. He glances back at Urameshi, who is also now sensing her energy, and nods with a serious expression.
"Hello. My name is Kazuma."
She recognizes the effort the boy is putting into speaking English, obviously a phrase he had learned from repetition in school.
"My name is Alexa."
After that, silence. Neither knew what else to say in either language. Urameshi falls to the ground in exasperation.
"There's gotta be a way over this dumb language barrier!" he shouts, incredulous and cursing Hiei for leaving so quickly. Alexa takes in the two boys and their interactions and decides that if either wanted to hurt her, they would make it obvious at this point. She thinks about the language barrier herself, until a notification sounds from her phone.
"Oh! Hey wait a second!" she exclaims, digging her phone from her back pocket and unlocking it hurriedly. The two boys silence themselves and watch her in interest as she begins moving her thumbs in a typing motion. Moments later, Google's audio translator speaks: "A reiki master in America sent me back to Japan to find Genkai. Can you help me?"
And with that start, the three become acquainted, even with some translation errors along the way (although this leads them to enjoy each other's company even more.) By a stroke of luck, she'd bumped into a friend of theirs named Hiei, and by extension met them. Yusuke turns out to be Genkai's successor and former student, though he confirms he can't really help her with her problem more than the master in America. Yusuke begrudgingly offers to take her all the way out to her temple in the mountains the next day, as Kuwabara has school to think about. After dropping her safely off in the general area of the apartment building she's staying in, the two message her on the LINE app to ensure they can further communicate. Although the language barrier still exists, she can tell that her new friends are going to really help her out.
"God I really need to just sit. I've been in marching band for how many years and I'm still out of shape," Alexa mutters under her breath, sitting back on Kelly's couch with her phone open on her Facebook messenger.
"'Hey mom, just wanted to let you know I'm still safe and Kelly is doing okay, she just really needed the support. She isn't off work yet but we're gonna go out to a karaoke bar or something to get her mind off of things. Love you, tell dad hi.'" She whispers as she types, a frequent habit of hers to talk to herself to always fill the silence. Back when she had silence to fill, anyway.
"This music crap is annoying." She sighs tiredly, thinking a nap would be nice. When the music first happened, she could hardly sleep not only because of the fear that someone would think she was a mutant, but because the music in her head that filtered out into the air from her energy never stops. The strain to control the volume combined with that factor made it difficult to get to sleep. Nevertheless, she locks her phone and lies back on the couch (her temporary bed) to get some napping in before Kelly gets home.
And here we are! Some songs Alexa plays will be explicitly said, and some will be implied, but I won't include any lyric stanzas or tell anybody to listen to the songs.
Any constructive criticism is welcome, and though I've gone through and edited and redrafted several times, I'm not perfect and would certainly enjoy any feedback you could provide! I always respond to reviews.
I'll post in another couple of weeks, given no major catastrophe befalls me.
Til next time,
-A