To you who guessed... the little girl is!!!... Read and find out
And yes, the first scene in chapter 1 is a dream of the past. I also would prefer that the shirts are not transparent, but it's up to your imagination
Eh... I'm sorry if this chapter is boring to you somehow, since I need to explain things
I'm also sorry if there is any out of character-ness. Please read and review~
For our SakeChapter 2As she was about to start walking, Atsuko noticed the young girl spacing out from the corner of her eye. Judging from her gaze, the girl was probably awed by the building before her. She, Atsuko, also had the same reaction when she first came here, although back then the faction wasn’t as tall as it was now.
Leaving the girl alone, she helped Rena ascend the steps that were in front of the door to the faction. There was nothing special about the steps; what made it difficult was the tallest girl’s injured leg.
Looking up, she nodded at Mayu who was holding the door open for them. Inside, the members were eyeing them, especially the girl trailing behind them. Everyone had already vacated the table nearest to the door; only Kojima Haruna and Kashiwagi Yuki were waiting for them at the table.
After helping Rena sit down, she stepped aside and stood in a corner while Minami told the girl to take her seat beside Rena.
As soon as Minami was in her reach, she immediately wrapped her arms around the small girl’s waist and leaned against her back. Somehow, the others’ faces cracked up when they looked at Minami’s direction. Wondering what was going on, she glanced down and pouted at what she saw.
The short girl was squeezing her eyes shut tightly, lips curled downwards as if in pain. She pinched Minami’s cheek and, with an unpleasant smile, asked, “Does Takamina have anything unhappy that she needs to tell Acchan?”
Without delay, Minami instantly straightened her face and shook her head quickly, “No! I’m totally fine!” She then whipped her head around to glare at the people who were laughing at her.
In response to Minami’s glare, Yuko laughed, “You poor midget!”
“You’re only a few centimeters taller!” Minami retorted. “And stop making fun of me! Pay attention to your partner instead!”
As if she just remembered something, Yuko gave an exclamation of surprise and, as though there were no tomorrow, instantly latched on to Haruna who was cleaning Rena’s wounds. “Nyan-nyan, go and play with Yuu!” Whining, Yuko shook the girl’s arm for her attention. Preferring to focus on her current task, Haruna pushed Yuko away by the face.
“Excuse me…” the unknown girl finally raised her voice. The girl then looked around to make sure she got the audience for what she was about to say. Slowly, she asked, “Didn’t you say that there was a medic? Why can’t you just heal her?”
Kashiwagi Yuki, who had been silently standing at the table, answered, “I’m here in case there was an emergency.” As the girl still had that blank look on her face, Yuki added, “Healing magic requires a lot of energy and puts a strain on the patient’s body.”
Haruna, still warding off the energetic midget, said in an airy voice, “Only those born with the ability to heal would be fine healing themselves; otherwise, unless it was serious, natural healing is the best.” The girl nodded; her expression was like that of a child that just learned something new.
For a while, Atsuko kept staring at the girl. She thought there was a familiar look on the girl but couldn’t figure out what. Willing to find out, she decided to start at the basics, “Your name?” It came out more rudely than she expected, seeing the girl was quite shocked.
“She didn’t mean anything. She just… uses her words sparingly.” From under her, Minami spoke up and patted her hands. Not intending to let anyone see, she hid her smile. It didn’t matter to her if the girl misunderstood, but she was glad Minami cared about her.
“Ah,” the girl seemed a bit more relaxed now, “Jurina. Matsui Jurina. I’m thirteen years old.”
“Huh?” everyone exclaimed; even Mayu, whose expression was said to hardly change, was unable to hide her surprise. Indeed, although her feature was young, Jurina looked too mature to be thirteen.
Letting the matter of age pass, Yuko stroke her chin with her forefinger and questioned aloud, “You have the same last name as Rena’s. Does that mean…?”
“I don’t have siblings.” The Matsuis answered Yuko’s unvoiced question in synch.
“Still, it’s interesting to know someone with the same last name,” Rena turned to grin at Jurina as Haruna finished cleaning and bandaging her wounds.
Yuki then grabbed Rena’s shin and asked, “Weren’t you limping just now?” She rolled her eyes as Rena replied with a sheepish smile. Yuki remained in that position awhile before standing up. She wiped the sweats on her forehead and stated, “Three days for complete recovery.”
“Thank you,” Rena said. Yuki, Mayu’s partner, carried within herself the ability to heal. She was also a master of the flame.
As they wondered what to do with Jurina, a voice, accompanied by the sound of footsteps going down the stairs, asked, “How did the two of you meet?” A tall short-haired woman, clad in the same uniform as the other members, appeared and made her way towards Jurina. The woman, who was wearing a gray shirt, introduced herself, “Shinoda Mariko. I let everyone know when there’s an order from Father.”
Feeling eyes on her, Jurina decided to leave the questions about Father for later. Staring at Rena, the young girl began to talk. “Long story short, something happened and I ran away from home,” she paused, seeming to recall the event. “It was in the middle to the night; I thought no one would be around so I wasn’t paying attention. But unfortunately, I encountered a group of… violent people.”
“I was out for a walk that night,” Rena joined in the story, “when I heard a commotion. So I went to check it out and saw her—”
“She was really cool!” Cutting off Rena’s line, Jurina jumped up excitedly and made punching gestures. “She had this cool look on her face and told them, ‘Go away or you’ll regret!’ Then they all ganged up on her, but she was super quick! She dodged every single of their attacks! Then she hit them like this! This! And like this!” Jurina, who was getting worked up, swung her arms around at invisible foes.
Rena watched Jurina with her eyes wide, hand over her mouth to keep herself from gaping. Grinning, Yuko nudged Rena and winked, “Looks like you have an admirer already.”
Watching the vigorous display, everyone couldn’t suppress a smile, but whether because Jurina was cute or because she was silly, no one knew.
“So!” Jurina returned to her story with a loud voice, “Rena-chan told me to go back home, but I refused. Then she asked me to go with her to a safe place—I guess she was talking about this place—but I refused too! So she told me, ‘Be at the Square every day at six, twelve, and nineteen o’clock. Luckily, there’s a clock tower at the Square, and it’s big enough so I always knew the time. Then! Then!” she had once again become energized, “I waited for her at the Square the next day. Then! She brought me breakfast! She always brought me food when we met up!”
As everyone gasped, shocked at Rena’s care for the kid, Haruna exclaimed, “That’s why you’ve been ‘taking a walk’ on a regular basis lately.”
“And we’ve been wondering what you did to your meals that you never finished.”
“What?” Jurina shouted, “Yay! I got to eat Rena-chan’s food!” before jumping over the table to hug Rena.
As the laughter died down, Mariko asked, “I’m sorry to cut your fun short, but you’re not going to provide your background, are you?”
Suddenly, Jurina’s smile left her face. “No…” she whispered.
The atmosphere now turned gloomy, pressing down on everyone. Then Atsuko understood the familiarity that she had sensed from the girl. She lived with the others as a family. However, she never told anyone about her past—no one ever shared the past; the only one who knew about it was Minami. Jurina, like she and everyone else, certainly wanted to forget something, to get rid of the memories that she never needed.
After a while of silence, Mariko was the first to break it. “If you have nowhere else to go, you’re welcome to stay here,” she offered. “Order from Father: ‘If the girl is willing, we’ll welcome her.’”
“When did you even talk to him?” Minami was obviously awed by this fast order.
Raising her eyebrow, Mariko grinned, “As soon as I saw your four. I’m supposed to be Father’s informant after all.”
“Is it okay?” Jurina lowered her voice. “Don’t you think I might be a spy?”
“Oh?” This piqued Mariko’s interest. Mentioning spies in a faction in a case like this could highly mean that the speaker had already known at least the name of that faction. AKB, despite being well-known in the world that was struggling for power, had never revealed its name to the public. They always went hunting for requests and receiving rewards in groups of two to ensure safety of the whole. Even the building didn’t have anything flashy; it looked just as dull as any other normal house. “Rena, did you tell her about us?” Mariko glanced at the aforementioned girl.
Surprised, Rena could only stutter, “Eh? Ah… no…” and redirected the question to Jurina.
Jurina blinked a few times, her mouth a perfect O shape. “You guys really are AKB? The real one?” she shouted.
“You seemed… shocked?” Mariko snickered.
The girl scratched the back of her neck, apparently embarrassed by her own outburst. “Someone I know told me about AKB once and described your uniform…” she trailed off and was quiet again.
After observing the girl some more, Mariko ended the topic with another question, “So? What do you say about our offer?”
“…” Jurina appeared to be considering this offer with some difficulty.
“If Rena trusted you enough to help you, then I’ll trust you as well.”
Indeed, although she was a gentle girl, Rena had not been very close to many of the members and was the only one without a partner. Even persuasions from everyone couldn’t change her mind. It was a personal matter of trust.
“Then…” the young girl’s lips slowly spread into a wide grin. Tightening her hold on the older girl, Jurina beamed, “I’ll join! I’ll join!”
Shaking her head, Mariko placed her hands on the table. “You can either partner up with Rena or stay partner-less. Of course, the decision depends on Rena.”
“I’ll be her partner,” smiling, Rena declared without hesitation, which generated some reactions amongst the other members.
“Good.” She then turned to Jurina and informed her, “We train every day from seven to nine. Then you’re free for the rest of the day to find a job to do or train more.” Checking her own watch, Mariko added, “We’ll start late today. Everyone, finish your breakfast if you haven’t already! Jurina, Rena can answer whatever questions you may have.” With that, Mariko turned and headed for the stairs.
As everyone returned to breakfast, Atsuko whined, “Takamina, I’m hungry!”
“Ah?” Bringing her hand up to pat Atsuko’s head, Minami laughed, “Wait here, I’ll get us breakfast.”
Sitting down to wait for her partner, she overheard Jurina ask someone, “There are not many of you here? Why is this place built so high then? There must be more people.”
The reason for this was that all of them were assigned works in other major cities. Only the first members and their partners stayed here in the capital. Some also wanted to see the world beyond this crowded place, so they had asked to be assigned elsewhere.
Rena probably answered this question for Jurina.
~~~~~~
The ground floor, now made into kitchen, had windows that allowed the light from outside in and two main doors. The other doors either led to the storerooms or restrooms. One of the main doors led to the streets, which was the one where Atsuko and the others came in from, and the other door opened to the quasi-garden at the back of the building.
It was like a small park that was isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by walls in all directions. A pillar was raised at each of the four corners, holding up the roof that ran along the walls to provide shade for anyone sitting on the benches under it. Perhaps only to decorate the yard, bushes were planted at the corners, a few feet away from the pillars.
(I case you can't figure out what I was describing at all.)
Early morning sunlight coated the ground with a milky white paint, streaked with some golden dust here and there. Finally done with the belated breakfast, everyone started leaving the kitchen and into the courtyard, or the training ground, to be more precise. While Atsuko stretched her shoulders, the others were shivering, rubbing their arms repeatedly. Realizing that no one would be willing to talk soon, she decided to take up the mission.
Telling everyone to gather together, she was about to say something Jurina suddenly stared at her face with such intent curiosity. As the girl kept on staring, she began to feel quite ticked off. “Is something on my face?” she asked.
Of course, the members, who had been living with her for quite a long time, did not see anything strange, but Jurina did. “You must have been used to it, but,” she started, “isn’t it uncomfortable, letting your bangs cover your eye like that? How do you see anything at all?”
She froze, not expecting a question like this to pop up. It was to be expected, though, for Jurina was new here. All this while, she was trying to forget about the reason she had never opened her left eye for years. Now leaving it close was natural to her just as blinking was to a normal person.
She could feel a chilly hand hold hers. Knowing it was Minami’s, she slightly leaned her body against the smaller girl for comfort and slowly replied to Jurina’s question, “I don’t use it.”
“Why do you not use it?” Needless to say, she knew everyone else was also curious about her answer; she never told them anything about her eye after all.
She thought about the question. Why did she need to cover her eye? A few reasons immediately came to her mind. It wasn’t something as trite as a sad or dramatic story from the past that still came to haunt her in nightmares. She was scared of what had happened, but that wasn’t it.
Tentatively, she lifted her hand to touch her left eyelid; it reminded her of something that she would rather not talk about. For years she had never thought about it and thus had forgotten about the reason of her sadness. It was something that held her down, and she didn’t want to accept its existence. It was a… “…Failure…”
“Huh? What was that?”
Without knowing, she had whispered her thought aloud. Stopping herself from wandering too far, she answered quickly, “I don’t need this eye. It’s a fragment of failure,” and crossed her arms across her chest to signal the end of the topic.
Minami, apparently trying to divert the attention from her partner, suggested, “Let’s introduce ourselves to Jurina first, shall we?” It was such an obvious attempt that she had to feel bad for Minami. Everyone could see through her poor excuse. But she was grateful of her partner for that and leaned down to kiss the short girl’s cheek.
It wasn’t anything usual. They only laughed as Minami blushed and made a funny face. Taking advantage of the “disturbance,” Yuko, fast as a squirrel, tried to land a kiss on Haruna’s cheek but was slapped away. Mayu, on the other hand, was safe when she hugged Yuki’s waist; however, as the clairvoyant moved her hands upwards towards Yuki’s chest, challenging her luck, she earned herself a smack on the head.
The training ground was filled with complaints about not being loved enough from the small perverts. Clearing her throat to stop the craziness, Minami turned to Jurina and introduced herself. “I’m Takahashi Minami; everyone calls me Takamina. I’m a swordsman—”
She had to pause for a moment when Yuko jumped in to add, “Also the best racer you can find in the area! She’s also our captain!”
Pushing Yuko away, Minami corrected, “It’s not official, but everyone keeps insisting that I should be one.” She then proceeded to tell the members to present themselves.
“Oshima Yuko at your service,” Yuko saluted and grinned, “I’m an archer, a very special archer who can shoot love arrows!” Her playful introduction seemed to have irritated Haruna, who was sending her death glares.
Pulling on Yuko’s ears, she ignored the whimpers and said, “I’m Kojima Haruna, just call me Kojiharu. I don’t think there’s any name for my ability, but I can hasten the process of things.”
“What do you mean?” Jurina asked.
Not being prepared, Haruna only hummed and tried to think of a way to explain to Jurina. Yuko, once again, in the name of the anonymous guardian, gave an example, “Let’s say, if you have a wound, she can either make your skin mend faster or increase the speed at which blood leaves your body.”
“Hmm…” the tall girl nodded thoughtfully, “I guess you can put it like that. It’s really tiring, though.”
“I think the thing that matters is you can kill someone, not how tiring it is…” Rena spoke nervously before turning to Jurina, “I’m Matsui Rena, a martial artist.”
Jurina, as overexcited as she was, was about to hug Rena again and scream, “Cool!” when Mayu’s voice stopped her, “If you’re going to jump on her, do it later.”
The look on Jurina’s face when her plan was uncovered was priceless; it simply said “no clue.” Mayu then grinned, “Watanabe Mayu. You can call me Mayuyu. I can see what will happen in the near future.”
“That’s why you knew I was about to hug Rena-chan!” Jurina shouted.
“No, no,” Yuki, who had been quietly smiling up until now, raised her voice, “it was written all over your face. I’m Kashiwagi Yuki; call me Yukirin if you like. I’m a medic and a mage of the flame.”
The last person in the courtyard had spoken; it was Atsuko’s turn now. Slowly, she began. “I’m... Maeda,” at the sound of her last name, her voice was dripping with resentment and some sadness, “…Atsuko. Everyone calls me Acchan. I’m an ice mage.”
There was still one more person yet to be properly introduced. Choosing the right time to reappear, Mariko opened the door that was the entrance to the training ground. “You better not forget my name already. You may call me Mariko-sama or Sama. There are some more members, but they’re currently not here. You’ll meet them soon enough,” Mariko said as she made her way towards them. “Your room is on the third floor; Rena should know where it is. Anyway, I inform the Father everything that concerns this faction.”
“Who is the Father?”
“Akimoto Yasushi,” Mariko answered. “He built this place, not the actual construction, but he took care of everything. We call him Father.”
“Actually…” Minami shyly objected, “It was Godfather at first.”
“Yeah, then somehow you all cut it down to Father,” Yuko joined in.
Narrowing her eyes, Mariko roared, “You midgets! Stop messing with my glorious self-introduction!”
Finally calmed down, she returned to their new recruit and inquired, “Do you have any specialty? Were you taught how to use a weapon or how to cast a spell?”
Of course, they needed to know the extent of Jurina’s potential; otherwise it would be a suicide on the battlefield. Seemingly deep in thought, the girl frowned and spoke slowly.
“My father…” she paused, hesitant to mention the man, “he used to teach me how to use every element. He said that a mage needed to know a good deal of everything and that being a Matsui, what I needed to learn the most was something else.”
Right now, even the air-headed Haruna was interested; she looked up from the flower she was trying to bloom. Urged by Mariko, Jurina continued, “He said that we were not medics, but he made me cut the skin on my palms and heal it.”
She stopped and looked at everyone, not knowing what else to say. Mariko demanded, “Describe how it was healed.”
Pressing a finger to her temple, Jurina closed her eyes. “Well, the blood… Usually when there’s a cut, if you hold the injured part up vertically, the blood will drip downwards, right? When I healed myself, my blood stopped dripping and streamed back into the wound. Then after a few seconds, the cut would close itself.”
Based on the given description, Atsuko could only think of time magic. As she was trying to solve the question, Jurina began talking again. “He also taught me how to use a short sword and a dagger, said it was for self-defense. But it was weird. He showed me where the vital points on a body and where the large veins were. He said it was okay for me to bleed, but never let a foe hit my vital points. And he left me to learn magic on my own.”
Contrary to Jurina, who seemed displeased at that, Mariko smiled; her eyes were full of curious interest, “Oh? Now that’s a nice way to find a real talented mage.”
Everyone nodded approvingly, but Rena and Jurina were confused by Mariko’s statement. It was understandable, since Rena was not a mage and Jurina was left out of it. Looking at their bewildered faces, Yuki suppressed a snicker and explained, “We all know that you can only use magic if you have Giilian blood in you, yes? However, many people, despite being a mage, cannot use magic unless they were taught how to.”
“Saying many doesn’t cut it!” Yuko jumped in and added, “Thos people make up about eighty percent of mages!”
“The rest are the mages with talents,” Minami continued where the explanation was left off. She was not a mage, but being Atsuko’s partner, she had picked up a few basic things about magic. “The talented ones are those who did not have proper lessons and trainings, but their powers awaken when they need them the most.”
“So before that happens, their powers just sleep?” Rena asked.
“Most likely, yes.”
“Can they choose what their powers are going to be?” Jurina asked excitedly, as if expecting something like a unicorn to appear out of nowhere.
“…What fairy tales did you read?” Mariko smirked. “Your power will either be the one that you inherit from your family or the one that fits your personality.”
The girl’s morale seemed to decrease right away. “That’s boring!” she whined, hunching her shoulders. The dreams of unicorn had been crashed.
Mariko only smirked more, “Be careful of what you say. You might be offending that mute kid over there,” and pointed at Atsuko.
Yuko laughed at Jurina, whose mouth was wide open. She boasted, “Except for her, every mage in this faction had taken lessons on magic at some point in their lives.”
“No way!” Jurina shouted. “But wait… actually, I think ice fits her—” Before Jurina could even finish her sentence, a sharp ice cone had already been pointing itself at her neck. Frosted smoke radiated visibly from the cone, and the sound of ice cracking was quite audible. Gulping, Jurina could see Atsuko glaring at her with a not-so-tolerant smile on her face.
As everyone smirked openly at the simply clueless new little sister, Minami desperately tried to calm Atsuko down. “I am not angry!” she refused to be mollified. “I am just a bit… ticked off.”
She narrowed her eye at Jurina who was wailing, “Rena-chan, help me!” However, Rena wasn’t sure if she would like to eat ice cream in winter.
“Acchan, Acchan! Let’s start training, okay?” Minami still tried in vain.
Mariko, not being caught in this, only went over to a bench, sat down, enjoyed her peace, and waited for the kids to start their daily training. After a while of watching Jurina struggle to get away from Atsuko’s unreasonable wrath, she sighed, “Must be nice to be young.”
End of Chapter 2It's now summer, it's too hot... so... it shall be winter every time you read this fic to decrease the heat
I seem to have described Jurina based on how the Jurina in Mousou Deka acted. She is too hyper
Question for you guys! What kind of mage is Jurina?
If you have any question that was not answered in this chapter, feel free to ask, I'll try to answer them
Unless they're secrets that shall be revealed later
Topic: For our sake (AtsuMina) - Chapter 3 Updated! 07/07/2012 (Read 9701 times)