To answer questions:
JFC: Now that I'm reading the last chapter, I didn't even realize how suggestive that first part was ^^;;
Oh, and yes, I do like playing the split personalities card a lot. I'll tone it down a tiny teeny bit after this though.
GL/Kreuz: This one's not Saki, though she does make an appearance. ^^
And now on to Chapter 3 (it's long. And I couldn't help but to add Viyuuden in the mix. I'm sorry, I'm always going to be a Charmy fan at heart)
Chapter 3 :: This is Unmei
“Ugh, not again.”
“They always make things worse.”
“I think they’re just in it for the glory…”
“Rika-chan… I think we should go.”
“Nonsense! We’re fixing the problems the evil Hatsugarasu have caused! Let’s go!”
Letting out a sigh, Erika rubbed her temples and followed after her Viyuuden leader, Yui in tow behind them, oblivious to what was going on. Sometimes she felt like a mother to their endearing former Morning Musume friend, but sometimes Rika just got excited, and that was why she was the way she was… right?
“Rika-chan, I don’t think the public likes it when we go to save the world…”
“They do too! Look at them!”
Erika raised her brow, and stared at the public, who was growling and glaring back.
“You can’t call yourselves super heroes if you make more messes for the real heroes to clean up!”
“Yeah, where’s 8th generation? Even Mittsi’s better than they are!”
Rika paid no heed, striding past the crowd to the ‘scene of the crime,’ if one could call it that.
It was more like there was an angry mutant monster thing on the loose. Whatever it was, it had scaly blue skin and looked like something out of an Alien movie with larger eyes and more spikes.
And it was munching on television sets.
Erika sighed again.
“Rika-chan, really, before they throw rocks at us again.”
“Let’s go Viyuuden!”
Instead of getting the cheers that they were all used to hearing in their many concerts (they still had fans, go figure), a loud roaring of ‘boo!’ shot through their ears. Rika stopped, and pouted a moment, before grinning, and going on.
“They’re telling the beast to leave town!”
“I swear Rika-chan, you’re in denial…” Erika muttered, grabbing Yui’s arm and going after Rika, who had gone right up to the beast.
“Hey you! Yeah, I’m talking to you!” she shouted angrily. The beast paid no heed.
“HEY! Don’t you know who I am!? I’m Ishikawa Rika, leader of Viyuuden! If you don't clear out now, I’m gonna hafta beat you up!”
Still, the beast munched and crunched, leaving Rika ignored. The woman snorted, and wound up a kick. Erika let out a noise, letting go of her friend and lunging forward, towards their leader.
Too late.
There was now an angry mutant beast, not munching on televisions, and glaring in Rika’s direction.
He had a very sore tooshie.
“Rika-chan, get outta there!”
“No! I have a bone or ten to pick with this thing!”
Rika wound up a kick again, but the beast reacted this time, lunging for the oblivious leader. Erika let out a noise, and was about to respond, when a large water spout shot past her, hitting the beast square in the face.
Yui grinned.
“Is it time to play?” she asked, cocking her head to one side. Erika groaned.
“Only if I don’t have to clean everything up later,” she mumbled. Neither woman paid heed to the eldest member of Viyuuden. Yui made her way past, and started to help Rika in the beating up of the monster. Maybe they’d run it out of town instead of into the sewers this time.
Erika, on the other hand, took to smacking her head against the nearest wall, trying to drown out the sounds of the crowd complaining and her bandmates beating up on a probably helpless beast.
If it blew fire out of it’s butt, maybe then she’d help, but until then…
“Miyo-yo?”
Erika stopped slamming the wall for a moment, and looked down. A small girl stared back up at her.
“Shouldn’t you be running away from the chaos?” she asked. The girl shook her head.
“Hi-hi’s my pet. Why are your friends beating up on my pet? He was just hungry.”
Erika blinked, and stared back over at where her friends were actually beating up the monster, rather successfully.
Usually when they went after evil villains, they failed to beat them up, or even get a hit on them, even the petty robbers.
So this was strange indeed, let alone the fact that this was actually the first big, blue mutant thing they’d faced since the incident. Rika and Yui must have missed that.
“Hi-hi wouldn’t hurt anyone. Make them stop!”
Erika wasn’t sure what to do. If there wasn’t a problem to begin with, then they would not have been there. This creature had to have hurt someone.
Right?
Or maybe the owner of the television store just had a panic attack and called Tsunku, and Tsunku sent his failure of a super hero team. Morning Musume was more useful, and they had lost two leaders in the span of a month, their current leader was a drill sergeant, and they were more disorganized than a kindergarten class without a teacher.
The point still stood. Why them, why not someone else?
“I said make them stop!”
“I heard you. Hold on.”
Erika still had no idea what was going on, but she knew one thing. If this kid was so damn persistent, then it was time to give her what she wanted.
“Rika-chan, Yui-chan, stop beating on Hi-hi!”
As Erika made her way over, Rika and Yui eventually stopped, and the beast, Hi-hi, stared at the new arrival.
“Hi-hi was just hungry,” Erika explained. The two stared at her strangely. Erika shrugged, and pointed over at where the child was.
“… Hi-hi is that girl’s pet.”
“What girl?”
Yui and Rika craned over Erika to try to find the child she was speaking of, and found no child. Erika looked over her shoulder, blinked, and raised her brow.
“… She was right there, I swear she was.”
“Suuure Erika-chan. Sure…”
Yui gave her friend a pat on the shoulder for comfort, but then remembered they had a beast to take care of.
“Now let’s take care of this infernal thing…”
When they all turned, it was gone.
“… Waaaait!” Rika whined, “I wanted to kick it’s butt!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Kamei-chan…”
Junjun gave her best pout as she brushed the stray locks out of Eri’s face. She smiled half heartedly as she sat next to her senpai’s bedside, a sentry that would let no one through.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you in time…”
She hadn’t even realized someone had snuck in after her, watching the scene.
“Junjun…”
Letting out a yelp, Junjun whipped around and stared at the small 8th generation member, effectively her senpai as well, but only because she was added first.
“Mitsui…”
“Don’t try bein’ all Yocchan-like about it. That’s Yocchan’s job.”
Junjun kept the emotionless expression on her face. Aika folded her arms against her chest.
“At least shed a tear…”
“Yoshizawa-sama told me not to cry.”
Aika raised her brow, and nodded in understandment. It made sense to her.
Well, everything but the whole ‘Yoshizawa-sama’ thing. That confused her.
“That doesn’t mean you have to adopt her mannerisms…” Aika said. Junjun stared at her, a little confused.
“… Sorry, I keep forgetting you don’t speak Japanese all that well.”
Junjun snorted, but didn’t say anything. If Aika was supposed to be Hitomi’s little sister, then why didn’t the girl figure out that Junjun could understand every word she said?
“Mitsui… get out.”
Aika stared at Junjun a moment. She had never shown a lot of anger before, so this was different out of the elder panda girl.
“What… what are you talking about?”
“Go away. Takahashi-san told me to keep you all from this…”
Aika snorted, in quite a similar manner to Junjun.
“I don't agree with Ai-chan, remember?” she grunted, “So I wanna know what’s going on… is Eririn okay?”
Junjun didn’t respond.
“Fine, I’ll just have to find out myse-”
“She’s in a coma.”
“What?”
The two eighth generation members stared each other down, unsure of how to deal with the other’s existence.
“She. Is. In. A. Coma.”
“I got that. How?!”
Junjun was silent, but not because she didn’t want to tell Aika, and the younger girl didn’t push it.
“I… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t do it. You aren’t FRIDAY.”
Aika gave Junjun a pout, and tried for a hug.
Junjun returned the sentiment.
“I’m still sorry.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Yoshizawa isn’t here right now, I don’t see why you keep trying to call her.”
It might have been because whoever now had control of Hitomi’s body was currently … well, in Hitomi’s body. Maki had of course, started to freak out.
She totally disregarded the fact that the convenience store’s crowd was still staring at them both.
“Get out of her then!”
“Why? She’s so easy to inhabit. Such a vulnerable mind.”
Maki let out a sob, and Hitomi… or whoever it was, snorted distastefully.
“She never really liked you anyways. You’re imperfect, even in her mind. You’ve ruined your body… your eyes are, and always have been, ugly. Your breasts are too big, out of proportion. You have no personality. I don’t know why she kept around you for so long. Maybe it was this ‘love’ thing she thought she kept feeling, but I doubt it. Considering she doesn’t love you.”
“Stop it!” Maki shouted angrily, “Stop it and get out of her!”
“Demanding little brat, aren’t we?”
“… Who are you?”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, names and stuff… gah… what do I call me…”
“Saki? If that’s you Saki, I swear to god…”
“Saki!? That witless twat!? No. I don’t even know why she even bothered getting out. No, no, that thing in Matsuura was merely a ploy to get you all into a false sense of security. Despite being a complete moron, Saki actually managed to beat this one down enough for me to get through… funny how that works, isn’t it?”
She paused, and stared at the younger woman, who was on the verge of tears. Grinning, she went on.
“You can call me Tori if you want. Short for Hatsutori. I’m a spirit, if you wanna call me that…”
Maki stared for a few more moments, before answering.
“But…”
“Look, kid. I’ve been alive a lot longer than you and your ‘lover,’ or whatever stupid name you want to call her, put together and then some. Just bare with me, ‘kay kid?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“I hit a tough spot? Kid, you ain’t got nutin’ on what I can do. I get to call you what I want to call you.”
Maki snorted, and she probably would have done more if Hitomi wasn’t on the other end of the argument.
Or Tori.
Or whatever the hell her name was.
“Look, Kid… Maki… Goto, Gocchin, whatever…” Tori went on, “She doesn’t love you, get over her before I let her back in.”
Maki glared.
“You’re lying.”
“Think I’m lying? I’m stuck in her head. I’ve been stuck in her head since her little groping friend died… and I think I’d know if she loved someone or not.”
“You’re lying to get me to give up on her!”
“… That’s what I want you to think? Blah blah blah… god, you all are so optimistic. What has Tsunku taught you? He’s such a hopeless romantic… guess I’ll just have to go show him what his romanticism made one of his favorite members.”
Maki had heard enough. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks as she made to smack Tori.
The elder woman/spirit grabbed Maki’s hand and bent it backwards just far enough to cause Maki to scream out in pain.
“I told you. Older than you. I can even blow you to the next dimension if I felt the need to. I do what I want, say what I want, to whomever I want… Now, if you ever want to talk to the stupid idiot in my head again, you’ll shut up and follow along.”
Maki did as she was told, allowing a whimper to escape her lips. Tori grinned, and kept her hold.
“Good. Now, you’re gonna let me get going, ‘cause if I don’t get to go find the Destined 8th, we’re gonna have a problem.”
Maki blinked, and stared.
“Destined 8th?”
“Yeah. Ya know, like… someone who’s destined to do some big stuff? She’s the 8th one destined to do this… god, did you transplant brain matter into your boobs? Is that what the problem is?”
“Stop… just stop…”
“No. It has to be done. Someone, who was meant to die, isn’t dead. I have to fix it.”
“… Who are you… you mean…”
“No, I don’t mean Yoshizawa. She actually did a right by living. First time she ever did something right… Nah. Fujimoto’s wanderin’ about… and I gotta go kill her again. No one is gonna like anyone after this, I swear…”
Maki blinked, and let a couple of incoherent mumbles escape her lips.
And the patrons of the poor store were still staring. None of this made sense. Why would it? An idol was talking like she was going to destroy the world… or commit mass murder, whichever was easier.
“Wait, Miki’s…”
“Was dead. Someone had to go cry on her and play necromancer with her body… she’s after someone, I can’t figure out who… it’s obviously not her necromancer master… or you’d be dead by now.”
Staring, rather stupidly at that, Maki tried to make sense of what she was saying.
“Yeah. You apparently have tears of the phoenix or whatever. God, I never believed in spirits and crap… which is kinda silly, ain’t it? I’m a spirit myself…”
Tori whipped out Hitomi’s cellphone and stared down at the time a moment.
“Oops, I’m late for a very important date. Down the rabbit hole I go… coming with me kid?”
More incoherent mumbles. Tori made a noise.
“Tch, fine. I’ll just go on my own and leave you to clean the publicity mess, neh?”
It was then that Maki noticed the poor patrons, who kept gawking at the scene. None had said anything, unsure of what to make of the situation. Maki turned her head again, to speak with the spirit.
But she was gone.
“… She went that way, Go-go!”
A little girl had the courage to speak, showing Maki the way Tori went. Maki smiled halfheartedly in thanks.
“Go get the mean spirit lady!”
Maki nodded, and followed after the spirit, but not before speaking to the child.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get her…”
As Maki’s form disappeared into the streets, the girl grinned.
“I know you will. You have to… it’s part of your destiny.”