The next day, thankfully, started out normal.
When Vann woke up, there were no sharp-toothed albinos, or skeleton men, and definitely no red-eyed stalker girls. Vann sighed as he starred into the mirror. At first, he had been convinced that it was somehow a dream, but the small scar on the side of his neck dispelled that hope.
He touched the spot.
It felt strange.
Vann pulled away from his reflection in the mirror. As much as he wanted to put it off, he was going to enroll in school today.
The mere thought scared him a little.
Not as much as that red eyed girl, but almost.
It certainly didn't help that he actually had to be present for enrollment into the new school. Didn't he read somewhere that leaving your home when you have a stalker after you is a bad idea? Staying home didn't seem any better. That girl apparently had a talent for appearing randomly. Vann could only imagine how terrifying it would be for her to appear in his bed, or anywhere, really.
Reminding himself that school enrollment couldn't be avoided Vann tentatively left the bathroom.
Might as well face it.
Reluctantly, the boy stepped into the hallway. The apartment was nice, but it wasn't very large. In front of the door that went out into the sixth floor stood his father, straightening his tie.
"Um, Dad," Vann began. "I really think...I should, um, tell you something. You see, last night-"
"I'm sorry, son," Naoki interrupted, "but it'll have to wait until later. Don't want to be late for your first day of school. Now where did I put those papers?
Vann sighed as he picked up the stack of papers that were his medical records and old report cards (all translated into Japanese, of course). What was he going to do if his father wouldn't listen? He certainly couldn't go to the police complaining about a girl with red eyes who held a combat knife to his neck!
He wouldn't be able to tell him in the car. When Naoki Akiyama was focused on something, it could be dangerous to attempt to move that focus.
So what was he to do?
He could just wait until after they visited the school. But what if the girl tried to get to him?
'You're being paranoid, Vann," he thought, 'why would she want to attack you at school?'
Vann's attention returned to his father who was heading out the door minus his son.
"Ahhh! Dad! Wait up!'
Vann sped out the door so fast that he seemed to kick up dust.
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"The boy could be useful to Master Morpheus's cause, sister," the form of a child whispered to its companion.
"Perhaps, brother, but he is weak. Much too weak for the Taleh Toper. Such a powerful being would tear him to shreds."
The two children were perched on top of a building across from the apartment complex the Naoki's now resided in. The boy was looking through a pair of binoculars into the Naoki apartment as Vann sprinted through the door after his father.
"Maybe we could lick up what's left," the girl giggled.
The two couldn't have been older then twelve.
They seemed to be dressed to make any self respecting lolicon or shotacon bleed profusely from the nose.
"Wait," the boy said, "when did we begin to employ HER?"
"The Taleh Toper? We didn't. I believe she's what these Middle Worlders call a 'sleeper agent'."
The boy snorted. "I despise her, sister. She thinks she's so much better than us just because she can Pull."
"We can't all be so blessed, brother. Don't worry, however. After she is no longer useful, I have something special planned for her."
"Special, sister dearest?"
"Special. I even prepared the special thumb screws and oiled the rack!"
The boy smiled but nearly leapt from his perch on the ledge when a loud burst of static suddenly filled the lull in their conversation.
"Sodom! Gomorrah! Stop trying to be creepy and get your lazy asses to the Under World! Morpheus is turning the place upside down looking for you two!"
The two jumped onto the roof of their building and bowed with their faces on the ground in front of the radio.
"Sorry, Shiri-sama! We're sorry! We'll hurry there right away!"
"Good," the voice replied. "And be prepared for a fight. Apparently Morpheus's fit is because he finally found the Half-Mother."
Gomorrah lifted her head with a wide sharp-toothed grin splitting her pretty face. "The Half-Mother?! Oh, what a glorious day!"
"Just get the hell down there. I'm busy and Morpheus-sama is threatening me with castration is he doesn't get some help soon. The Half-Mother can put up a good resistance effort, unsurprisingly." The voice sighed. "Now that we've got that out of the way... You two had better not be bowing in front of radio again."
"No, not at all, Shiri-sama," Sodom groveled.
The woman on the other end gave an indifferent grunt. "Just get down there."
Static fizzled from the radio again and then there was silence except for the wind blowing.
Gomorrah stood, her smile gone.
"Stupid bitch," she growled.
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The red eyed girl couldn't believe her luck.
Finally, she had managed to find the albino alone.
On an empty street and without her akuma.
She seemed different, though. She was wearing a sundress, for starters. The red eyed girl had never seen the albino wear a dress. And her hair was short, straight, and messy. The red eyed girl somehow doubted she had changed it late last night.
'You're getting distracted!' she reminded herself.
The red eyed girl once again set her focus on the albino.
'Be smart,' she reminded herself. 'Make your kill quick and efficient.'
A gust of wind blew past and the red eyed girl shivered. A miniskirt, as the humans called it, was not the best garment for sitting fifteen meters up on a ledge. Of course, back home, she was used to wearing clothes that would get her detained for public indecency here. But she never would have been stupid enough to wear something so skimpy in the colder regions of her homeland that she so loved to visit.
The girl shook her head in attempt to dispel thoughts about her home. A clouded mind would only distract her from her kill.
She returned her attention to the street below...only to not find her target.
The red eyed girl face-palmed. 'How could you be so damned stupid?!' she reprimanded herself. The albino had probably escaped and was long gone by now.
Suddenly, the girl felt something around her ankle. She looked down to see the albino hanging by one hand off the ledge.
The red eyed girl looked shocked as the albino pulled her off the ledge, sending her straight into the asphalt and creating a human sized crater.
The albino flipped backwards off the ledge and made her body completely straight. Tensing her muscles for the impact, the albino slammed her booted feet into the small of the other girl's back.
Red-eyes cried out in pain. The red eyed girl gasped for air. Her chest and back were in extreme pain and she was sure that many of her bones were broken.
The albino grabbed the red eyed girl's hair and pulled her face off the ground.
"Who are you and why are you following me?" she questioned in a monotone voice.
No answer.
Red-eyes' face was suddenly banged against the ground again.
"I asked you a question!"
"You...you are-," Red-eyes began but was cut off when coughs wracked her small frame, "you are the o-one who r-ruined my l-life." Her voice came in ragged gasps and coughs as she tried to breath beneath the other girl's weight.
"Ruined your life?" the albino asked, her voice a monotone, "I don't even know who you are."
"You d-decapitated my m-mother and gutted my f-father. You will pay for that."
The albino raised a hand above her head. A sphere of light formed in her palm and it spread out into a cylinder shape. The light dissipated and was replaced with a naginata. The red eyed girl's eyes widened in shock.
How did she do that?!
The albino stabbed the blade into the ground just beside the red eyed girl's head.
"The truth," the albino demanded her voice once again a creepy monotone.
No answer.
The albino stood, pulling the naginata out of the ground and raising it above her head.
She brought it down on the red eyed girl, stabbing her straight through the heart.
Something was wrong, though.
There was no blood.
She had killed people before.
She knew what happened when somebody was stabbed through the heart. The albino ripped her sword out of the girl's corpse to reveal swirling rainbow lights in place of bone, muscle, and a heart.
The girl stood up, her now ratty black hair falling in front of one of her glaring red eyes as the stab wound sealed itself. Her hand reached for her waist, but the albino struck faster than her hand could reach the knife.
The albino's clenched fist collided with the red eyed girl's gut and sent her flying down the street. When she started to slow down, she bounced, leaving more craters in the asphalt.
The albino sprinted forward and reached the dazed girl in a flash. The albino forced her foot beneath the red eyed girl's body and then kicked her into the air.
The girl flew thirty feet in the air and then started to fall. As she did, the naginata rematerialized in the albino's hand. She pointed it up toward the falling girl who landed on it, gut first.
The red eyed girl gasped as her eyes widened in agony. The albino turned the naginata, body still attached, blade down and swung it to the left, sending the red eyed girl straight into a wall.
As the girl lay in the pile of rubble, covered in dust, she did her best to keep from slipping into unconsciousness.
Her best wasn't enough.
The girl's vision went black.
The albino looked at the unconscious form of her assailant. No answers were going to be coming from her. Now that the girl was still, she did look familiar.
But I would never...I would never murder innocent people, she thought.
What if this girl or her parents at least, wasn't innocent?
Maybe she wasn't even human. She didn't have any internal organs, apparently.
The sounds of police and ambulance sirens interrupted the albino's thoughts.
Best not to be seen around an unconscious girl, who was currently lying in a pile of rubble that used to part of a wall on a street that was now riddled with craters.
The albino's naginata dematerialized and she began her run away from the sirens and the unconscious girl.
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Vann leaned back in the front seat of his dad's car, Gorillaz's DARE blaring out of his headphones.
Where was this school?
The white walls and glass had given way to brick and mortar and the only people they passed eyed Naoki's car enviously.
They had been driving for the past thirty minutes, but his dad seemed to know where they were going. That was what Vann hoped, anyway.
A few minutes ago, they had been passed by police cruisers and a couple of ambulances apparently on their way to some kind of emergency.
Vann hoped they wouldn't pass it.
Luckily, they were driving in the opposite direction.
Vann paused the song and removed his headphones from his ears. "Dad," he said, "are you sure you know where we're going?"
Naoki nodded
"I lived here most of my life, after all."
"This street looks abandoned, though."
"It has been a while, I'll admit. But there's no need to worry. We'll get you enrolled still!"
Vann gave a dejected sigh as he put his headphones back in his ears. How different were Japanese schools? He was sure he'd be singled out quickly.
And what about that creepy red eyed girl? Did she go to school? And Kasuno. Mecu, for sure, was a grade higher, but he'd probably still be around. What if they tried to talk to him?
Vann leaned his head against the window and watched the passing buildings.
This wasn't going to be much fun. Talking to people and making new friends had never been his strong suit. It didn't help that he had threatened with death if he didn't stay away from the only people in this city besides his father who had been nice to him.
As he daydreamed, he noticed someone running on the sidewalk. It was definitely a girl, and she was moving incredibly fast. Vann was lucky he even got look at her face.
And then he wished he didn't.
This girl, whoever she was, looked exactly like Kasuno. But it couldn't be her. This girl's hair was short, straight, and messy, where Kasuno's had been long and wavy. This girl also lacked the mischievous gleam in her eye that Kasuno had.
As they came to an inter section, the girl and Vann's father stopped to make sure no-one was coming. When the girl looked in their direction, her bright pink eyes came into contact with Vann's terrified ones. Vann quickly broke eye contact and looked straight ahead.
Thankfully, she didn't turn the same way they did. Vann thanked God for that.
After another few minutes of silence and abandon buildings, not only did the streets start to fill up with cars and people again, but they finally arrived at the school.
Naoki pulled into the parking lot of Rakuen West High.
Like most of the other buildings in the city, the west district high school was multi-story building of smooth white steel and clean glass. The building sat on what appeared to be an island, surrounded by what could only be called a moat. The edges on the school's side of said moat were decorated with immaculately trimmed hedges and an arch with giant cloak sat over the bridge between the road and the school's parking lot.
Vann saw students in uniforms milling around and talking to each other as they readied themselves for another six hour school day.
His father stuck his head out the window and gave his son a pat on the arm. "Good luck, son," he said.
Vann nodded reluctantly. He was already getting a few strange looks. He did his best to shrug it off, though. Looking like a target was a bad idea in America, and he doubted it would be a good idea in Japan.
"This is going to be a long day," he muttered to himself.
Shouldering his backpack, he headed for the double glass doors that marked the entrance.
First stop: the faculty room.
After depositing his shoes at the front door, he asked a student to point him in the direction of the faculty room.
When he stepped through sliding door, Vann was surprised to see not teachers, but people his own age. Four of them, two boys and two girls. All four looked like they could grind him to dust without breaking a sweat.
One of the girls, who oddly enough didn't look Japanese at all, was giving him the most fierce death glare he had ever seen. The other girl, whose wavy black hair was in pigtails, strangely, pushed a pair of oval-shaped glasses up the bridge of her nose. She gave Vann a cold stare.
"Well," she scoffed indignantly, "since our discussion has been so rudely interrupted, we will continue later, Kobayashi-san."
She bowed her head respectfully in the direction of one of the boys who was leaning against a desk. this boy was tall for his age, almost six feet. He was thin but somehow looked immensely strong at the same time. The oddest thing about him was his silver hair, though. Wait. Silver hair, Kobayashi?
'Don't tell me...' Vann thought.
The pigtailed girl turned to the other boy who was so small, you could be forgiven for thinking he was a child. "Gabriel," the girl said and curtly walked out the door, the small boy trying to keep up with her quick steps.
"Bye, then, Nakahara-chan," the silver haired boy said, smirking. As she left, the girl shot him a glare that would freeze the sun.
After the other two were gone, the silver haired boy gave Vann a welcoming smile. "You'll have to excuse Nakahara-senpai. She's alright once you get to know her. Anyway, I'm Khouta. Khouta Kobayashi." He motioned to the girl. "And that's Lydia Mjölnir."
Vann gave a slight polite bow of his head, but Lydia's ominous glare remained.
"So," Khouta continued. "New student, eh? Give me minute."
Vann expected him to go find a teacher, but instead, Khouta began to dig through a filing cabinet. Vann was just glad he hadn't been left alone with Lydia. He was actually beginning to wonder that was just what she looked like. She hadn't blinked since he'd come in, either.
It was disturbing.
Finally, Khouta stood, holding a file marked Akiyama Vann.
"Here we go," he said. He opened the file and glanced at Vann. "That checks out," he mumbled to himself. "Alright, looks like your home room is with Lydia and I. C'mon, it's almost time to start."
As Khouta and Lydia headed for the door, Vann stood there, surprised not only at the speed that had just happened but with Khouta apparently not needing to find a teacher to check Vann's records.
Lydia stopped in the door long enough to give Vann another glare and then went into the hall.
Vann sped out the door in an effort to follow.
This was going to be a long and weird day.
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I'm still alive! I'm still alive, goddamn it! Anyway... I'm mostly happy with how this chapter turned out. I didn't like the fight scene (read: beat down) very much, though. I couldn't really find the right words to describe what was going on in my head. Also, the ending to this chapter just felt a little rushed, but I couldn't come up with any way to make it longer. It doesn't help that I really don't know all that much about the Japanese school system, either. All I do know about it comes from Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers which aren't exactly 'reliable sources'. I'm pretty sure Khouta wouldn't have been allowed to do that, but why he was will be explained, more or less, eventually. And how four students were allowed to hang around the faculty room will be explained as well. What they were talking about, however, will take a little longer. Some stuff before I finish. I'm going to try to write faster. What few people who actually care about my stuff (and that is awesome by the way, people are actually reading what I write!) are probably angry with me for going so slowly.
I get distracted by other things way to easily, okay? And writing's more of a hobby for me, anyway. I've also currently got three stories going (this one, Generator Breach, and The Watch) and I'm going to start writing chapters for those three in a cycle, Middle World -> The Watch -> Generator Breach, until one of those three is finished at which point it will be replaced with one of the many ideas I currently have floating around development
Hell. I'm also thinking of doing this like a Japanese light novel. Y'know, do a volume with about ten chapters. The series will probably be pretty long, though. I might have to delete some unimportant scenes. If I do, though, I'll compile them together and put them up here, 'cause why the fuck not?
And one last thing. Can someone please tell me how in the hell to change the name of the first chapter of a story? For some reason, every time I try, it changes the title of the actual story, so help? Anyway, sorry for the really long authors note, there was just a lot of stuff I needed to get out of the way.
If you can, review, vote, and all that other good stuff. I appreciate it. See ya in Star City.