[Episode 225489] [Episode 225489]A young girl with light blue hair, a white shirt and a dark blue skirt was walking across a bridge that was arching over the canal. She carried a bag of books and was happily humming to herself.
Behind her, sudden footsteps were closing in to her. As well as a high voice: "SIIIIS! Wait for me! No fair leaving without me..."
The owner of the voice was another girl who was almost identical to the first one, except that she had fiery red hair and a dark red skirt. As she came to a stop in front of her sister, she panted heavily.
The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Kaori, this is really annoying. Every time I have to wait because you're to scatterbrained to find your way."
"I can't help it, Yuki," the red-head sniffled. "All of these roads look the same. I would have never found you if not for your coolness..."
Yuki couldn't help but smirk. "That's right, I'm the coolest, and don't you forget it." She knew pretty well that her twin sister had inherited their father's bad sense of direction, it just annoyed her at times. On the other hand, she knew that Kaori would always find her way to her sister, by concentrating on the aura of cold that she was radiating.
It was the same with Yuki and Kaori's aura of heat. No matter if they were able to see each other or not, as long as the distance between them didn't get too big, they could always feel where the other one was at the moment.
"Now can we get going?" Yuki asked. "School's starting without us at this pace."
"But Yuki..." Kaori protested. She looked around, obviously looking for something... or someone. "Where's oniichan?"
"As far as I know him, he's around," Yuki sighed. She didn't understand how her twin sister could be so attached to their half-brother. She thought Koichi was an annoying, immature brat. But Kaori simply adored him.
It was pretty strange to have two mothers at home... even though Akari was the one who gave birth to the twins, Ukyo still treated them as she would her own son. At times, they would ask their father: "Daddy, why does everyone else only have one Mommy?"
And Ryoga would smile and reply: "That's because you two and your brother are special."
Yes, Ryoga did have his sweet moments.
While Yuki was struggling to pull her sister along, and Kaori was still searching for a sign of their brother, something happened. The water underneath the bridge suddenly began to bubble and foam. The twins heard the sound and walked over to the guard rail.
Yuki sweatdropped. "I think I know where Koichi is, sis..."
And then, a tall pillar of water suddenly erupted out of the canal. On top, there was a young boy sitting cross-legged. He was smirking at the girls. "Morning, sis! Morning, sis! Nice morning for a bath, isn't it?"
"Oniichan!" Kaori smiled with glee. "There you are."
Yuki just mumbled: "Showoff..."
Ukyo's son was tall for his age, but that wasn't the most outstanding part about him. His skin was colored a dull brown, and his teeth were sharp and pointy. There were a couple of slits at the side of his neck... gills that allowed him to breath under water. And if you watched him closely, you'd see the thin webbing between his fingers and toes. He usually walked barefoot and wore a suit that might look like a combo of a normal shirt and a pair of pants, but it was actually a custom-made diving suit with short sleeves. After realizing that Ukyo's son had to regularly wet his skin to keep it from drying, she made this suit for him, so he could always go for a swim everywhere he went without ruining his clothes.
"Would you come down there?" Yuki asked in an annoyed tone of voice. "We're going to be late."
"Aww, don't be such a spoilsport," Koichi smirked as he brushed back his long, black hair. "Kaori would love to see a trick, right, Kaori?"
"Yay!" Kaori shouted and giggled. "Show us a trick, Koichi!"
"The heck he will!" Yuki snapped and pointed her palm at the water pillar. A short stream of cold air came out of it and froze the pillar solid.
Koichi frowned as he looked down at his body, which was half-encased in the pillar of ice. "Eheheh... nice trick, sis. You can let me go now."
"You can free yourself," Yuki snapped. "Serves you right for being a showoff."
"Awww, c'mon, Yuki... you can't leave him like this," Kaori said. She raised her own palm, and a few flames came flying at the ice, melting it back into water.
Koichi used his powers to make the water give him a solid shove, so that he got flung through the air. After doing a mid-air flip, he skillfully landed on his feet, next to his sisters.
Kaori clapped her hands. "Nicely done, oniichan!"
"He's not that older than us..." Yuki murmured. "We were born at the same day... and if we don't hurry, we will all be late."
"I get it already," Koichi sighed. "Can't you take a joke, sis?"
But since Yuki wouldn't say anything else to him, he just sighed and ran after his sisters.
"Hmmm..." Yuki murmured as she came to a stop. She looked around. "Which way was it again?"
"Don't tell me you got lost, Yuki," Koichi smirked.
"Of course not! I'm not like Kaori and Dad. I never get lost!" she claimed.
Koichi crossed his arms. "Well then, prove it. Which is the right way?"
Yuki scratched her head. She looked left and right, before finally coming to a decision. "It's that way!" she shouted and ran to their left. Her siblings followed her.
Just a few minutes later, they stood at the edge of a park... but the school was not even close.
Koichi raised an eyebrow. "You were saying, sis?"
"Shut up..." she just grumbled.
"Oh no," Kaori whined. "I don't wanna be late at the first day of school..."
Soft laughter was suddenly echoing through the trees.
"What?" Yuki asked. "What was that?"
"Is anybody there?" Kaori shouted.
Suddenly, a girl lowered herself out of the trees in front of them... long, green vines were coming out of the leaves and wrapped themselves around the arms and body of the girl, who looked pretty strange, even stranger than Koichi, maybe.
Her skin was brown, almost like a deep tan... and her hair was a dark green. Like Koichi, she was barefoot... and on closer inspection, they saw that the vines were actually growing out of her body. And her hair wasn't just hair, it was a wild, tangled mass of grass and vines. Here and there, beautiful flowers were growing on her head.
Not letting herself be baffled by the strange girl's appearance, Kaori smiled and stepped forth. "Hi. I'm Kaori. Who are you?"
"I am Mei," the girl said in a calm voice. "Mei Kuno... but you can call me Mei, the Red Rose."
"Kuno?" Koichi wondered. "Hey, don't Ryu's aunt and uncle have that name?"
"My mother is Kodachi Kuno, sister to Tatewaki Kuno," Mei said as she lowered herself to the ground. The vines retracted themselves and vanished into her body. Instead, roots suddenly came growing from her feet and planted themselves into the soft soil. She sighed. "Aaaaah... delicious..."
Kaori had to snicker. "Is that how you are eating?"
Mei gave her a smile. It wasn't a nice smile. "Why should that matter to a peasant?"
Kaori was taken aback. "Now that was plain rude..."
"Hey! You better not talk to my sister like that, or else..." Koichi bared his spiky teeth and angrily shook his fist.
Mei narrowed her eyes. "You better not lay a hand on me, brute... the Red Rose may look like a delicate flower... but her thorns are deadly."
"Yup, she's a maniac," Yuki nodded. "You think she had bad parents?"
"Well, if she'd stop insulting us, I won't have to remind myself that Dad told me not to hit girls..."
"You think you could even hit me?" Mei asked in a low voice.
"You bet I could," Koichi yelled.
"C'mon, just let her go," Yuki muttered. "She's not worth our time."
Mei ignored Yuki's words. "You commoners are all the same... you fail to understand the brilliant minds of the nobles... you might have taken my mother away from me... but I will take her back, just you wait."
"What is she talking about?" Kaori asked. She was getting a bit afraid by that scary girl.
"I dunno, but if her mother was as kooky as her, I'm not surprised if she got herself into trouble," Koichi smirked.
That was the wrong choice of words. "You cretin!" she hissed and with no warning, thorny vines came shooting out of her abdomen and shot at Koichi.
Koichi gasped as the vines wrapped themselves around his wrists, stomach and neck. He winced when the sharp thorns dug themselves into his flesh.
"Oniichan!" Kaori gasped.
"HEY! You better stop it right now, or else..." Yuki shouted.
Koichi grunted as he tried to free himself from the vines. "N-no worries, girls... I got it under control..."
Mei tightened the grip on his body and smirked. "Fool... you can't beat the Red Rose..." She then giggled. "Aaaah... I feel a lot of water inside your body... you know that plants need to get watered on a daily basis, do you? How about I suck that delicious water right out of you..."
"It's YOU who sucks," Koichi growled. He tried using his powers to free himself, however, there was no body of water around that he could control.
"Now that's enough!" Yuki shouted and raised her hands. A blast of cold air, and the vines froze solid in the middle. One solid jerk from Koichi's body, and they broke apart.
While Koichi freed himself from the limp, half-frozen remains of the vines, Mei retracted the other half back into her body. "You have powers..." she realized, looking at Yuki. "Are you of nobility as well?"
"Stop talking nonsense and get the heck out of here," Yuki shouted. "Or I'll freeze more than just those vines."
"You are not scaring me," Mei whispered. "The cold of winter is not enough to make this flower wither away..." She spread her fingers, and two beautiful, red blossoms came sprouting from her palms. "These beautiful flowers are filled with dozens of deadly, poisoned thorns... they can kill a grown dog in a couple of hours... I never tested them on humans, though... care to be my first test subject?"
"Y-you leave my sis and bro alone, you big bully," Kaori suddenly said as she stepped in front of Yuki. At the tips of her fingers, small flames had appeared.
Mei winced. The stinging cold had been bad enough... but she knew that every plant could be easily burnt by fire.
"I have no time to deal with the likes of you," she spat. "But just you wait the next time we meet..." And letting her vines regrow, she pulled herself back up into the trees and vanished.
Kaori sighed and dropped her hands. The flames vanished. She then ran over to her brother. "Are you okay, oniichan?"
"Y-yeah, I'm fine... that girl took me by surprise. The next time, I'll be ready for her."
"Oh, would you stop it?" Yuki sighed. "You're just as stubborn as Dad..."
Tatewaki Kuno, heir of the Kuno mansion and fortune and unemployed husband to the richest woman of Japan, knocked against the door of his son's room.
"Son? We need to speak."
"Go away, Dad..." came the mumbling response.
Tatewaki frowned. "That is no way to talk to your father, boy. I'm coming in."
The steel door opened and Kuno stepped into the bleak room. It was empty except for a metal bed, a huge locker, a metal table and two metal chairs.
His son was sitting on one of these chairs, staring out of the high security window that was solid enough to withstand the impact of shotgun bullets. At the ceiling, in one corner there was a beeping machine with a display of numbers. It was measuring the level of radioactivity in the room.
Hikaru Kuno himself wore a safety suit that concealed his whole body from head to toe. His head was underneath a dome of the same security glass his window was made of. Anyone who saw his head would find it to be even more disconcerting that the appearance of Mei.
He had no hair. His skin looked black at the first glance, however, it was actually a very, very dark green. His whole head was surrounded by a corona of bright, green light. every time he breathed out, the number on the display in the corner of the room would rise, and fall every time he breathed in.
"What do you want, Dad?" he asked. His voice was coming out of a small loudspeaker on the front of his security suit.
"Son, this can't go on like this," his father told him. "In the past few weeks, you barely left your room. The rest of the house is safe enough. Your mother would love to have at least once a week have dinner with you..."
"If she wants to have it extra crispy, why not?" Hikaru grumbled.
"Stop talking nonsense, boy. Your last outbreak has been months ago. We have paid the best scientists of Japan to find out just what can be done. And Mr. Nagato even said that, given some time and the correct equipment, we could enroll you at school..."
"School? Yeah right... I'd be the freak of school in no time... everyone would treat me like some sort of abomination... if my radiation doesn't kill them first..."
"Son, it is unfortunate that you were born with this... malady, but you cannot sit in the corner of your room for the rest of your life. You are the next heir to the house of Kuno. Think about what your poor grandfather would say if he knew..."
"GRANDPA? Grandpa's DEAD because he came too close to me," Hikaru yelled. He turned around and stood up to look at his father. His eyes were a pair of blazing, green suns. "EVERYONE who comes into contact with me becomes contaminated... and you want me to go to school..."
"As long as you wear that suit, you will be fine," Tatewaki said.
"And the outbreaks?" Hikaru whispered. If he were able to cry, he would do so. "It happened before, three times..."
Tatewaki became silent. He knew how dangerous his son's radioactive outbursts were. And these outbreaks came without any warning. Every time that happened, his son's current suit would be destroyed, and only an isolated room as this one was able to shield everyone from his destructive powers.
Being the father to a being made of living radioactivity was certainly enough to change a man... Tatewaki wasn't the delusional fool he had been as a teenager. Same thing with his wife... Nabiki might be still greedy, manipulative and scheming, but she now used her skills for the good of her family. True, their new company, Kuno Enterprises, brought them wealth and fortune... however, most of it was lost for the research Nabiki and Tatewaki were sponsoring, the research of nuclear radiation... they would pay any price to help their son.
"Just let it go, Dad..." Hikaru whispered as he sat back down on his chair. "Let's face it, I'm gonna stay in this room for the rest of my life..."
"Not if I can do anything to change it, my son," Tatewaki said in a strangely honest voice. He gave the back of his son's glass-encased head a final, sad look, then he walked back outside and closed the security door behind him.
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(Posted Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:42)
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