The date was 15 April 2005. It was a work day, at 12:00 in the afternoon. Any sensible man or woman would be at school or working at their job. Only the mothers and babies were free today, and even the mothers had to watch and weather the babies. Yet there were those that would not go to work, and refused to attend school. Among those group of people, though only a handful or so residing in Japan’s students, were two children, whom one hated school with demise and the other loved it, as their life. The two worked as one though. Attending school together and ditching school together as well. With one street wise and the other smart the two never got caught. The two children’s names were:
Miyoko Tendou
Mitake Tendou
Twins at birth, Miyoko just minutes older than her brother Mitake, the two were best friends, and outcasts. While Mitake was extremely smart he often ratted the streets with his sister, stirring up trouble and living a life of delinquency. Their mother was miles and miles away. They had no real father…the only person anywhere near was their money hungry aunt…and they rarely even saw her. The only other companion they had was a little boy about 10 named Jiyu and his pet cat Tora. Today, Jiyu and Tora weren’t with them.
Miyoko sat on top a brick wall, idly looking down at Mitake, who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. She was thinking a bit, and he was thinking too, both thinking about the same thing…just in different ways. She hopped off the wall, landing in a smooth crouch beside her brother, who didn’t move as she landed, her brown hair, short in the back and long in the front about her ears, fluffed as she landed. Mitake looked at her, and blinked his brown eyes. He had brown hair, cut like every other boy in his classes, short and drab.
"Soun isn’t gonna let us come down." Miyoko stated, still crouched. Mitake didn’t move, and said:
"I know that. He never wants us around."
Miyoko smirked. "What else is new…" Mitake turned to look down at her.
"Sohu may not want us around but Haha must…she wouldn’t just leave her own children…" he started to say*1.
"Seems to me that’s exactly what Soun and Kasumi have done." Miyoko snorted, disrespectful as usual, standing up, a few bare inches taller than Mitake.
Mitake shook his head. "It’s Sohu’s fault, not Haha’s. He doesn’t want us around, he doesn’t like us….for some reason." He trailed off. Miyoko looked at her brother, and blinked.
"Didn’t you hear the conversation Kasumi and Nabiki had? Soun thinks we’re ‘brats’ and will spoil his ‘littlest girls departure date’." She laughed aloud, shaking her head. "What a stupid old man. I mean, yeah, grieve for your kid but c’mon, she died like what, 20 years ago? Get on with your life." She muttered, and then hit the brick wall, playfully. Mitake sighed.
"While its true we never knew Akane-oba*2, Sohu obviously was very fond of her. And we’ve always ruined the day she died when we go down there…he-"
"We did that once." Miyoko cut him off. "When we were 7. I mean, he old fool ignored us all day, and we sat at some stupid graveyard for like, what eight hours? It was pointless. I’m sure Akane was a great old aunt but I mean, she’s dead. Get over it." she muttered and shook her head.
Mitake blinked, looking at his sister, then smiled a bit. "Do you know how old Akane-oba was when she died?" he questioned.
--Uh-oh.-- Miyoko thought. --He’s giving me that look again…what’d I say wrong this time?-- she thought. "No…how old was she?" she questioned, lightly interested.
"Miyo, do you even know how Akane-oba died?" Mitake asked, leaning one arm against the wall, turning his body to face Miyoko.
"Nope, I was never told. But I suppose my genius brother knows everything in detail about it, don’t you?" she remarked almost snidely.
Mitake laughed a bit. "Well, as a matter of fact I do. I was curious as to why they never told us how she died, only that she had died…I discovered some really…outrageous stuff." He said.
"Define ‘outrageous’." Miyoko commented. Mitake paused, and then.
"Outrageous: very bad or insulting; shocking; atrocious; flag-."
"In Miyo-terms." She interrupted.
"Oh, right." He said sheepishly. "Like, bad. Something that’s rather shocking." He answered. She nodded.
"Alright, give me the quick version." She stated.
"Okay, okay. It seems Akane-oba was living with this really rich guy named…uh, Kunou…or something." He gauged his sisters expression. "and, well, anyway there was another guy, I can’t remember his name…I’m not sure if it was even listed, but anyhow, this guy was like obsessed with Akane-oba and when he found out she was living with this rich guy he came in with some bomb and like blew the entire mansion up. With him, it was the deal, ‘if I can’t have her, nobody can’. I think it was described as a ‘miniature atomic blast’. Obliterated the house, Akane-oba, the Kunou’s, and himself I believe…" he stopped, thinking of the carnage, and then continued. "…it was the talk of the town for years, and Sohu was really affected by it. It said he witnessed the explosion. That he was close enough to feel the blast and shock wave, that it seriously injured him,…and that he said he knew the exact moment his daughter died." He paused, as if he were to say more, then looked at Miyoko. She stared at him.
"That’s it?" she said.
"That’s it." he replied.
"Oh shit…man, what a romantic love story…" she murmured. Mitake blinked.
"’Love story’?!" he cried out. "It was a mass suicide/murder! How can you find that romantic in the slightest!?" He cried in dismay.
She turned and looked at him, dark eyes narrowing. "Honestly, Mita, you have no sense of romance in you whatsoever. Just imagine, some guy, totally obsessed and in love with you, so much that seeing you with another man tears your heart into pieces and all you can think of is destroying the one that stole your love from you! Oh…that’s so romantic. I wish some fine ass sexy guy was desperately in love with me…"
Mitake just stared at her, and shook his head. "I sometimes wonder if you and I are related."
Something had happened to the day in Nerima. It had been bright and sunny, cloudless and warm. The weather was beautiful the trees gorgeous and full of budding life. Small animals even coming to people and eating from their hands. It had been such a fine day. No one had a care in the world, and the air was clear and fresh, laced with the scent of cherries and sunlight.
At noon, the sky started to change. It went from flawless crystal blue to a speckled blue to a flawed blue to a marred blue until the better portion of the reflective sky was covered in thick gray clouds, the sun shrouded by them, the temperature dropping without the light. People noticed the change, dreading the upcoming rain that was going to be falling soon, the darkness that had consumed the beautiful spring time. But the saying had always been, "April showers bring May flowers", and the people did not think of it again.
Except Tendou Soun, who had no other life than watching the seasons change and reading his paper and smoking his pipe. He saw the clouds form, and he felt they personally affected him. It was the fifteenth of April. Three days from the day Akane had…he closed his eyes, flashing back in remembrance.
The sun had already begun to set, as he ran along the paved streets of Nerima. The year was 1989, and all he could think about was that it had been five years since the death of his daughters fiancee. Five years, and four months…it was April now. The fourth month.*3 In the pit of his stomach he felt something wretch, and then outwardly something wretched. There was a sound.
Everything seemed to moved in slow motion. A flash of intense yellow. It pulsed once, just a light, and then seemed to be sucked in, then following in succession, a flare of atomic brightness exploded outwardly. The noise was so defeating that all he could hear was the white-quiet of everything, so loud he seemed to go deft, until his hearing range on that exact tone vanished and the tone faded, leaving him with only a ringing of something playing but not there.
The light burned his eyes, blinding him, searing the lens on his pupils, leaving them a milky white. He couldn’t comprehend anything as the blast of light seared his skin and clothes, and then he was hit by the intense shock wave. Like an invisible hand raking at him, and slamming into him at an alarming speed. He was hurled backwards, his feet knocked out of his shoes, and flung into a tree where he cracked several ribs and broke his legs. Then as the shock wave and light wave past he was hit, finally, by a wall of intense bright yellow chi, invisible to all but those who could see auras.
It was wraith and anger, grief and anguish, and it hit him from all sides and none. It was everywhere, but no where to be seen. It wrapped about his body and seeped into him, crying and aching, seething in his broken body, filling him with agony, as it shot past and through him. Leaving him empty and robbed of his emotions, stealing ever last bit of his anger and grievance until he screamed out loud with a broken voice for the God that was, to take him then and there, and end his suffering. After his energy was spend he fell back onto cracked ribs and broken bones. And the last thing he knew before he slipped into unconsciousness was the fact that
His little girl was dead.
And that single thought would plague him for his 3 month coma and 6 year recover therapy.
He blinked, a thick sweat standing out on his brow, his breath labored and hoarse, as if he had just experienced the entire ordeal anew. He swallowed tightly, his hands taut, holding to the arm rests of his chair, panting, eyes tightly squeezed shut. Then he opened his eyes wide, and exhaled, thankful that it was only a dream. Thankful that he wasn’t experiencing it all over again. Thankfully for-
"I brought you some ice tea, father." A soft, caring, melodious voice drifted to him.
It was Kasumi at the door of his room, holding a tray, bearing a pitcher of tea and a glass of ice. "I thought you looked uncomfortable in this heat…so…" she stepped forward and set the tray and all it held on his table, then bowed and departed.
Thankful for Kasumi.
He shook his head, realizing how uncomfortably hot and sticky it had become, as though a layer of humidity had rolled in along with the clouds. He poured himself some tea and drank it, not wanting this weather, not wanting these clouds. Not wanting those brats here on the 18th.
He shook his head and looked back out the window to the now dark land beyond him and was depressed, his heart still racing from his remembrance, and he thought about…how much he was going to hate dealing with the twins this time around.
The phone rang in Nabiki’s home office, but she was not there to intercept the call. There was no secretary to answer it at her home. She has no roommates to record a message for her. It rang twice more, and her answering machine picked up. There was a soft whirring, as the recording started to play.
"Hello, you’ve reached Tendou Nabiki. Thank you for calling, but unfortunately I’m not home right now. If you’re delivering money or donations, please leave a message, if not please call-"
He hung up.
She wasn’t home. He wouldn’t talk to a machine.
He hung the phone back up in its cradle, and the phone jingled, depositing the coinage.
He needed to talk with Nabiki.
Not her secretary.
Not her machine.
Just Nabiki.
He turned and left the phone booth.
*1: Sohu = Granfather, Haha = mother
*2: Akane-oba = Aunt Akane
*3: April is the fourth month. The word four in Japan is: shi. That same word means 'death'. So four is a very unlucky number in Japan.
