Fūka Island (local time: 10:31 AM)…
"Is this true, Yukino-san?"
"Hai, Headmistress, it is true," Kikukawa Yukino stated. "Father Joseph received an unknown call at approximately 9:20 this morning from someone offshore. From what Diana was able to analyse, the Foundation is now starting to learn about Avalonians and their presence here on Earth." A sigh. "While he's not noted all the changes Miyu-san has been able to make to her internal programming, he hasn't discovered what she's been doing with herself on her spare time. I'm afraid that once she gets back to the Academy and he does a regular maintenance check-up on her, he'll learn of her relationship with Akane-san. And thus, all of us."
Hearing that, Kazahana Mashiro blinked before closing her light turquoise eyes. Unlike her situation a year ago, the only survivor of the last HiME Festival/current "Child" to her maid and personal secretary (and now bond-mate), Himeno Fumi, was neither confined to a wheelchair or in the form of a young child. Thanks to the cloning of her body thanks to arrangements made by Moroboshi Negako when the Emperor's personal assistant turned her attention to this island in the middle of the Inland Sea, the centuries-old warrior princess now appeared to be a woman in her late twenties. And while she still possessed her considerable power as both a HiME (though not bonded to a Child) and as a human version of a Child in her own right, the headmistress of Fūka was more content to allow most of the new generation of HiMEs to go forth and deal with the increasing Orphan problem, which was the automatic precursor to the next attempt by the Obsidian Lord to break through the dimensional barriers and finally extend his power over Earth.
"We're going to have to do something about him, Mashiro," Sugiura Midori, who had been called to this meeting by Yukino after she was told what was about to happen to the Tokiha siblings and their companions, then warned. Also present in the headmistress' chambers today were Fumi and Homura Nagi, who was seated off to one corner, glancing through a book and looking as if he had no care in the world. "It's bad enough that these Searrs bastards turned around and forced a HiME's powers on a little kid like Alyssa-chan, but if Greer's about to stumble in on all of OUR big secrets before everyone's ready…"
Mashiro gazed at her high school history teacher, and then she sighed. Having lived since near the end of the first century of the Tokugawa era, the headmistress was personally inclined to lean towards what Midori was ultimately suggesting. And given what the Searrs Foundation ultimately was, it would be both honourable and proper given the fact that the Foundation was a foreign power now trying to seize control of metahuman powers controlled by Japanese women and alien creatures that entered this dimension on a Japanese island. Of course, that the Foundation's leaders saw themselves as part of a society that had existed since the days of Charlemange…!
"We will deal with him when the time comes," she then declared. "What of this matter Negako-sama's people told us about, Yukino-san? These psychokinetics the Wisdom Alliance seeks to control? Would a battle between such beings and Mai, Mikoto and Akira backlash on us by any chance? Much that I personally don't care to deal with the idiots in First Division, they will be banging on my doors wondering what's going on if Kagutsuchi, Miroku and Gennai appear in the middle of Honshū."
"There is another organisation involved," Yukino stated. "The Kaiete Information Research Group. Yui-san told me that its leader, Kaiete Senzō, was an acquaintance of Negako-san's from World War Two. He also has strong contacts with local police departments across the country through his friendships with various levels of the national government. And given that Negako-san herself speaks for the Emperor…
Midori chuckled. "Even the old fools in First Division can be made to shut up finally," she noted as she crossed her arms. "Well, once they're gone…"
"We can concentrate on removing Searrs' attempts at trying to co-opt everyone and then prepare ourselves for Onii-san's coming back, so to speak."
Eyes locked on Mashiro, and then the women there nodded. Nagi then lowered his book. "Amazing that you all are so confident that you'll win," he noted.
They gazed on him. Trickster kami he was deep down, they knew he wasn't truly evil despite his being flatly convinced that the Festival would occur, just like it had many times before. "We know the risks," Midori stated. "And we know what can happen if any of us screws up. But there's no way that ANY of us are just going to stand by and let that monster that possessed Mashiro's brother to come marching back here again and fuck around with people's lives without making him realise that he can't do that anymore."
"He won't give it up, Midori-chan."
"Neither will we."
Nagi blinked, and then he smiled before turning back to his book…
The Fūka Academy chapel…
"Thank you again, Father!"
"God go with you all, ladies," Joseph Greer stated as he made the sign of the cross.
As the small group of high school girls walked off, the "priest" now tending to the old chapel that had been built close to the Academy in the early days of the Meiji era tried not to scowl as he turned back to walk inside. Stopping to watch as the lone nun assigned to this place, Sanada Yukariko, finished comforting several crying elementary school girls over a bout of homesickness, Greer took a deep breath before he turned and headed into his private office. Once there, he closed and locked the door before he walked over to sit at his private desk. Of course, whatever equipment he had in his office that he had managed to smuggle in from his supporters in the Searrs Foundation had been well-hidden, even if the naïve Yukariko never entered his office without permission. And while he was tempted to re-read the long communiqué he had received from New York City concerning what the Foundation had just come to learn…
Aliens.
Potentially millions of them.
Living on Earth for the past decade according to some potential theories.
Looking as human as the next person.
Fitting in amongst Terrans and interacting with them.
Reason as to why they were here…
Unknown.
The Searrs Foundation didn't like THAT type of "unknown."
The centuries of work that the Foundation — and all the people who had worked for the organisation that had evolved over the years and centuries into the Foundation — had done to see the Golden Millennium finally arise was potentially under threat.
Thus, this type of "unknown" had to be dealt with, immediately.
Could they be here? the "priest" wondered to himself as he relaxed in his chair. And if these aliens were here, how on Earth could they be detected? And once they were detected, what then? What did national governments (which the Foundation did have connections with, especially those in Europe and the Americas) know of these beings and why were they keeping such things top secret from the general public? Was it because of what just happened in Canada yesterday? And if so, did that mean…?
He shook his head as he waived off that long string of thoughts before a headache set in. While he was a scientist first and foremost, he knew he had next to no knowledge when it came to matters of politics. And his superiors in the Foundation didn't encourage him to think about those sorts of things. His function now was to make sure that the MIYU unit was operating at top capacity for when it came time for the Foundation to make their move on Fūka in hopes of destroying all the HiMEs and thus offering Alyssa Searrs up to become the one true princess of this "obsidian lord" that had been attempting to spread his influence over Earth for millennia. And given the increase of Orphan incidents that had been plaguing Fûka over the last year or so…
Maybe it was time to jump-start things.
Greer sighed. He'd have to wait until Miyu returned, of course…
On a hill overlooking the Academy (local time: 10:44 AM)…
"Mai-onēchan, Mikoto-onēchan and Akira-onēchan are in trouble?"
Fortunately for Alyssa Searrs and Higurashi Akane, it was free morning for them both.
"Not really," Akane said as she closed up her cell phone, and then she moved to allow Alyssa to relax in her lap. "But since they're potentially worried about what might happen if this Wisdom Alliance gets hold of Anna Garten's girlfriend, they want some help from Artemis just in case this Alliance decides to attack the Togakushi Shrine."
Alyssa blinked, and then she nodded as she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to reach out into space to the device now in geo-synchronous orbit over Fūka Island. AS her hair started to glow, the device — which hovered at the same altitude as most of the Earth Defence Force satellites — began to activate as several bio-organic cameras switched on and shifted their focus to the northeast of the current location of the satellite's mistress. As the cameras began to zoom in on the mountains northwest of Nagano. As Alyssa looked with her mind's eye through the cameras aboard Artemis, she then blinked. "There's a helicopter over the shrine now, Onē-chan…" she said. "It's Negako-onēchan's helicopter." A little more concentration. "Kurumi-onēchan and Yukie-onēchan are piloting it. There are a couple of men in the back seats scanning the ground with binoculars." She then relaxed herself as the link with Artemis faded and she then looked up into Akane's face. "But whose men are they…?"
Akane hummed as she picked up her cell phone and flipped it open so she could quickly send out a text message. "Let's find out," she mused.
A minute later, a reply came back. Gazing at what was there, she then blinked. "Oh, they work for a man who was a friend of Negako-sama's from the war," she mused, and then she hummed before setting the phone aside before she moved to draw Alyssa closer to her arms. "Let's wait a bit before you link with Artemis again," she then said as she leaned down to kiss the younger girl's forehead. "I want to hear you sing."
Alyssa smiled before she took a deep breath and then began to sing the first verse of a recent country music compilation that had been made in Canada the previous summer. As the young singer fell into the flowing medley of Standing Strong and True (For Tomorrow), Akane could only rock her body as she hummed out the melody; compared to the Golden Angel of Fūka's school choir, she couldn't personally sing a damn.
And Akane didn't care; for all her programming sophistication, neither could Miyu.
As Alyssa sang out the song that bade listeners to ultimately accept the soldiers that stood on guard for their freedoms as their own brothers and friends even if you didn't know them personally, Akane allowed her tears to flow as she recalled how she had walked the path from a child born of an abusive couple to a Terran-form Avalonian with the special power to summon an alien creature from a different dimension. A being that had selected HER of millions of potential candidates to be his personal princess, his master and guide for a potential conflict that would decide the fates of worlds.
So we can love one another,
That stranger is your brother.
Leaving footprints everywhere you go…
Keep yesterday for giving,
Today's just for living.
Say a prayer every night for tomorrow…
No.
She couldn't do it.
For so long, Akane wanted a simple and normal life…and in her quest to get that normal life when she became an Avalonian, she ALSO found herself as one of twelve selected people, strangers to each others at first, that would compete in what was nothing more than some mad parody of that disgusting Battle Royale movie she had seen once, where there could only be one true survivor at the end. And what was the final fate of the potential survival of the HiME Festival? To be the prospective bride of an alien monster who wanted nothing more than to conquer all of Earth and plunge it into darkness for Eternity. And that would ultimately mean…
The people who saved her from her family would ALSO be subjected to darkness.
AGAIN!
And while she couldn't hate Harry for doing what his instincts had told him to do…
She couldn't hate her fellow HiMEs for being put into the same position as she…
She would never hate Alyssa for she was in the same boat as all the HiMEs…
And Miyu…
"Onē-chan…?"
Akane jolted, and then she looked down to see Alyssa gazing at her, a worried look on the younger girl's face. Blinking as she realised that Alyssa had finished singing her song, the high school student sniffed back her tears as she smiled in assurance at her. "Gomen…" she whispered as she drew Alyssa close to her, accepting the younger girl's hug as her eyes gazed down at her cell phone, knowing a call would be coming.
But the Searrs Foundation…
The First Division…
And the Obsidian Lord…
They would ALL be in for a very rude surprise.
So now we…
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(Posted Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:30)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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