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Post by cypsiman2 on Feb 5, 2012 20:10:39 GMT -5
[Ah, I had not realized that Malik was not being held within the Academy, even though I should have; what sense would it make for someone that dangerous being kept there, right? As for Dartz and company, I suppose we could bring them in later; a scorecard to keep track of each faction and how they stand with one another would likely prove useful. Wait, idea! Yes, I think we can bring in Dartz and company attacking Pegasus Academy, but just like you wanted to handle the reveal of Yuugi's powers, I want to handle the attack. I've got something in mind that would be...delicious. But yes, wait for things to settle into place before we pull the rug out from under everyone, especially Yuugi.]
....
"Big brother?" Mokuba watched Seto pensively, fearfully. He was at his computer reading, analyzing, studying the whole world as seen through the lens of the net. It was mostly political stuff, wars in far away countries and how the people were displaced, who took them in and who turned them away. Mokuba understood that this was important stuff, just because he wasn't gifted didn't mean he was stupid, but he couldn't help wanting his brother to forget that stuff for just a little while, forget what Gozaburo had taught him to be like and remember how things were before...well, before.
"Have you been out today?" He spoke so suddenly that Mokuba wasn't sure that he hadn't just imagined it, but Seto's gaze laid that notion to rest.
"...No?" Seto's eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry brother."
"Don't be. You shouldn't have to hide in here." Seto returned to his work and Mokuba felt that distinctly wormlike sensation writhing in his stomach. There had to be something he could do, even as a normal person, even if he didn't have any magic, he could still come up with a way to help his brother.
"It's okay, Big Brother, you're just trying your best." Mokuba went over to his bed and resumed reading his book; it was about brave heroes fighting terrible monsters with the support of the people. If only real life could be like that...
....
"Miho is so sorry about earlier; she really wishes she could be more careful about what she says, but her mind goes so fast sometimes and she really likes talking so she has a really tough time watching what she says." As he Honda listened to Miho, he once again had the enigma of her being pressed upon him; you'd think that she was a total airhead from how she acted, but whenever books entered the picture she was always so quiet and focused, and her grades were always near the top of the class if not the very top. Yet there were times when he found her by herself when she thought no one was looking, and she acted like she was now, so it wasn't like it was just an act.
"Miho, you didn't do anything wrong." Shizuka spoke up, now standing in the middle of her doorway. "My brother...I love him but he just gets so angry and violent, and he's usually so kind, it...it makes me worry that I might be the same way, that I might get so mad that I could end up..." Honda knew all too well exactly what Shizuka was talking about; her power was a subtle but dangerous one, blocking the air in people's lungs so they couldn't breathe. He'd heard the story from Jounouchi, about how some punk tried to mess with her while he was taking a leak, and by the time he got out the prick was writhing on the ground, grasping at his throat and utterly silent. It was a damn lucky break that he was able to get her to stop before it was too late, and that Mr. Pegasus had found them just a little later that day, but even so...
"Trust me Shizuka; you guys may be siblings but you two are worlds apart. And really, Jounouchi's not that bad; by dinner he'll be down before you on his hands and knees to apologize. You just...I don't know, keep holding on I suppose."
"Thanks Honda, I know you're trying. That's what matters." She bowed to him and Miho and entered her room, the door shutting automatically behind her.
"Miho thinks she wants to go to the library. Would you like to join me, Honda?"
"Sure thing." Honda lingered a moment longer, and then departed with Miho.
....
"See Yuugi, isn't this great?" Yuugi watched Anzu with the utmost enraptured awe; it was one thing for Anzu to have learned how to ride horses in the short time that she had been at the academy, but to be able to use her powers to create an invisible road for the horse to ride upon was just unbelievable; true, they were only about an inch or so off the ground and judging from the look on her face she wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer, but still...
"Anzu, you're amazing!"
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Post by Scribbler on Feb 6, 2012 8:03:43 GMT -5
Her smile lit up her face as she trotted towards him. “Nah, I’m just a beginner.”
“I can’t believe there are horses here,” Yuugi said, tentatively reaching out a hand for the beast to nuzzle. Its nose was velvety soft as it lipped gently at his hand, licking off the salt.
“They’re part of the therapy programmes,” Anzu explained. “Some idea about animals making people calmer and more relaxed, which is essential if you can, y’know, blow stuff up with your mind.”
Yuugi’s hand froze. “Someone here can actually do that?”
“No, that was just an example. Don’t look so worried, Yuugi. You’re one of us now and we look after our own.” She leaned down to pat the mare’s neck. “Taking care of animals teaches responsibility and gives companionship to people when they feel like they don’t fit in with other people. It makes them feel like they belong if they have something living and breathing to care for that won’t judge them or anything like that. It’s easier for Gifted kids who’ve been mistreated before they come here to bond with a horse, or a dog, or a cat than one of the teachers or students. Eventually they open up to people again, but they wouldn’t do it without that first connection.”
“I guess I can understand that. So are there dogs and cats here too?” Yuugi laughed as the horse went from his hand to his face, licking his cheek like she wanted to play the part of a friendly dog.
“Whoa there, Aspasia.” Anzu pulled at the reins. “Yuugi doesn’t want to be covered in horse spit. Besides, your breath probably stinks.”
“She’s all right.” Yuugi rubbed her nose, blinking when she gave a great snort that blew back his hair and dried out his eyeballs.
“In answer to your question, yes, there are a handful of them, but they’re kept in the kennels and cattery when they’re not out on rental.”
“You RENT cats and dogs?
She laughed. “I forgot you don’t know the lingo yet. We say ‘rental’, but it just means we all share in them – walking duties and stuff like that, and poop-scooping if we take them for walks around the grounds. We have a rota, so I’ll show you where to check for your day, but students can opt to take care of them for a day or night outside their usual slot if they like, and they’re responsible enough.”
“That’s pretty weird for a school.” Yuugi realised what he had said. “Although I guess not, for this place.”
Anzu watched his expression flicker and asked suddenly, “Do you want to try riding Aspasia?”
He shook his head. “The closest I’ve ever been to riding a horse is that donkey at the beach when we were eleven.”
“I remember that!” Anzu giggled. “You were so small, they wouldn’t let you ride it alone, so your grandpa had to get on too.”
Yuugi groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“And then,” she went on anyway, “he kept kicking it because he was embarrassed, and it took off, and you both did perfect backwards-rolls off its butt!”
“I said not to remind me!”
Anzu kept laughing. “My mom thought you’d broken your necks and led me and my donkey over to check you out. Your grandpa had sand all in his beard and you had it in your hair for, like, a week afterwards!” She actually wiped a tear from her eye. “I’d forgotten all about that. Man, I loved that vacation. Do you know we wouldn’t have had one that year if your grandpa hadn’t invited us along?”
Yuugi remembered clearly how his grandfather had heard about Anzu’s parents’ divorce. He and Anzu had been friends only a few months, and tentative friends at that, but Sugoroku Mutou had still invited Anzu and her mom to go with them to the beach for the weekend. It was gloriously hot and they had eaten ice-creams, paddled in the sea and gone crabbing in the rock pools. The entire experience had cemented Yuugi and Anzu’s friendship more than time snatched at recess, away from the prying eyes of popular kids and school bullies.
“I hadn’t forgotten,” Yuugi said. “Sometimes I still find sand in my ears.”
It felt good to smile and laugh, especially about something so innocent. Today had been an uncomfortable mix of heavy reality and light-hearted fantasy he barely believed despite having lived it. Spending time alone with Anzu was nice; like they used to, before either of them learned they were Gifted. If it wasn’t for the school behind them, Yuugi could almost pretend they were still eleven year olds on a beach enjoying the first flush of friendship.
A noise made him look up. Anzu turned in her saddle. Her expression darkened.
In a far field someone had set up several jumps, like Yuugi had seen in pictures of gymkhanas. Red and white striped bars were balanced between pairs of posts, spaced apart in a rough circle. A large brown horse – Yuugi was sure there was a special word for the different colours, but to him ‘brown’ seemed sufficient – was cantering between them and leaping each with ease. The tiny figure hunched over its neck stood up in the stirrups with each jump, but hunkered so close when they landed that it was difficult to tell horse from rider.
“That’s Rebecca,” Anzu said. “She’s on Socrates again. She’s not supposed to ride him because he’s so bad-tempered, but she never listens. He can’t be stabled anywhere near Aristotle or Plato anymore because they panic and kick up a fuss. He actually bit Miss Kujaku when she tried to ride him – she’s, like, an expert because she used to enter all these different competitions when she was younger than us, and even she can barely handle him.”
Yuugi watched Rebecca. You would never be able to tell that the horse was a problem from the way she handled him. “She’s really good.”
“Yeah, I guess. She says she has her own horse back home.”
“Where’s that?”
“America, I think. Her grandfather has some connection to Mr. Pegasus, so she came here instead of a Gifted school in the States.”
Aspasia nudged Yuugi again to make him stroke her nose. He obliged, reflecting on the names Anzu had mentioned. “Are all the horses named that way?”
“They’re all named after ancient philosophers,” she confirmed. “I think it’s some sort of private joke from Mr. Pegasus, but it’s so private nobody gets it but him.” She shrugged, as if the quirks of their headmaster were none of her concern. “I suppose you’ll know more about him and his jokes than anyone soon.”
Heavy reality crashed back on top of them. Yuugi dropped his eyes. “I guess.”
After a long silence, Anzu asked, “Are you sure you can’t tell me about your powers? C’mon, Yuugi, it’s me. We’ve been best friends for years. Think of all we’ve been through. Surely you can tell me.”
He cringed. “I really can’t.”
She sighed. “Mr. Pegasus is great, and this school is great, and it’s great that we have a place to learn about our Gifts in safety and everything, but sometimes he can be so annoying.”
Annoying was better than terrifying. Yuugi decided to change the subject anyway. “Do you think Jounouchi will be okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Shizuka seemed pretty mad at him.”
“They’re brother and sister. Granted, they don’t fight nearly as much as other brothers and sisters, but they still argue. They always get over it. They’re each other’s support network, since their dad doesn’t want to know and their mom is frightened to death of both of them. She’s not as bad as their dad but … well, we have Parent Days three times a year and she’s never been to one. Jounouchi is super-protective of Shizuka, but that’s mainly because of her eyes, not their parents.”
“I wondered about that, but it didn’t seem right to ask,” Yuugi admitted.
Anzu swung her far leg over her saddle and jumped down from Aspasia’s back. Taking the reins in one hand and patting the mare with her other, she inclined her head at Yuugi. “C’mon, we can talk while I walk Aspasia back to the stable and get her untacked and brushed down.”
“Untacked? Is she stuck to a corkboard or something?”
“Ha ha. I mean I’ll take off her bridle and sadly and stuff – her tack. You tack up a horse and then untack them afterwards.”
“Consider me educated.”
They started walking, Anzu’s voice falling into the cadence of their footsteps. “This is mostly stuff I’ve pieced together from talking with Shizuka and Honda. Honda was Jounouchi’s best bud in regular school, so he knows Jounouchi better than anyone else. Shizuka’s always had weak eyesight. Their parents are divorced and she lived with her mom, but they didn’t have much money, so when Shizuka needed an operation to save her sight they couldn’t afford it and her sight just kept getting worse. Jounouchi lived with his dad. I don’t know the full story, and neither did Honda, but Jounouchi and his mom REALLY don’t get on. Whenever he wanted to see Shizuka he had to sneak into her school playground or something. When she and their mom moved to Tokyo, it devastated him. Then last year he got his Gift and came here, so he couldn’t have seen her even if he wanted to.”
“That’s awful.”
“Tel me about it. My mom never stopped me from seeing my dad when they divorced, and they were pretty civil to each other when they did cross paths. From what Shizuka told me, it wasn’t like that for them. Their parents were screamers and liked throwing things, even in public. Their mom once whapped their dad with her handbag when they happened to meet at Jounouchi’s school for a parent-teacher conference. She never went again, even when he was expelled for fighting. His dad wouldn’t sign any paperwork for a new school, so Jounouchi now has to be in the class below us despite being our age to help him catch up. He never talks about it, but things were pretty miserable for him before he came here. The only bad thing about getting his powers, so far as he was concerned, was not being able to sneak off to see Shizuka. On the outside he used to bully kids into giving him their lunch money, then he’d put it in this jar until he had enough to pay for a return ticket to Tokyo. That is, until his dad discovered the jar and spent it all on drink. Months of work, all gone in an instant. Honda said Jounouchi got into some pretty bad stuff after that – he wouldn’t tell me what, but I think it might have been gang related. He was so desperate to go see Shizuka he got mixed up in some stuff Honda only just got him out of.”
Yuugi also wondered what it could have been. He pictured the lanky blond boy with the easy laugh and tried to imagine him beating up kids for small change. It was hard until he imagined the look on Jounouchi’s face when he talked about Malik and how he had cussed and torn up the grass after Shizuka yelled at him. Jounouchi had a temper.
“After he got here he tried the same thing, but Miss Kujaku caught him. He had taken money from one of the other students and was trying to get off school grounds so he could go to the train station and get a ride to Tokyo. She was so mad at him, but all he did was give her a mouthful of abuse, so she made the Macarena keep going around in his head for three days until he apologised to her and the student and begged her to make it stop.”
Yuugi winced. “That sounds cruel and unusual.”
“It did him good. Jounouchi’s not a bad guy; he’s just had a lot of bad stuff happen to him and made a lot of bad choices. The Academy was the best thing that could’ve happened to him.”
Yuugi had to agree. “I sense a ‘but’.”
Anzu nodded. “Will you open that gate for me?”
“Sure.”
He scurried over to let them from the field back into the stable-yard, where a couple of non-Gifted stablehands were carrying what looked like buckets of slop around. The air was thick with the acrid smell of dung, fresh hay and horse. The men smiled and greeted Anzu, who smiled and said hello back. She led Aspasia to the stable from which she had fetched her. Busily, she set about taking off the mare’s tack and rubbing down her massive grey body.
“Hand me that currycomb, will you?”
Yuugi looked at the array of things laid out on the stone windowsill. “Which one is that?”
“The one with the handle that loops over the back of your hand. The purple one.”
Yuugi handed it over as Anzu continued to talk.
“Eventually, after a lot of good behaviour and working with Rishid on his powers, Jounouchi was allowed on a supervised visit to see Shizuka. Apparently their mom wasn’t too happy about it, but Mr. Pegasus said something to make her agree, so Jounouchi and Rishid went off to Tokyo and took Shizuka out for a day-trip. It was all going well – you’ve seen how attached they are to each other, and at the point they hadn’t seen each other in nearly three years – until they went to an indoor arcade and Jounouchi went to the bathroom. Apparently Rishid got a phone-call and stepped aside to answer his cell. It was less than five minutes, but these kids had been watching them and started picking on Shizuka about her sunglasses. She had to wear them all the time because her eyes were so sensitive to light. They pushed her out the fire door, into the alley behind the arcade, and they … well, let’s just say they weren’t looking to play games with her.”
“You mean they …?”
Anzu nodded, briefly laying her forehead against Aspasia’s neck, as if for strength. Yuugi’s eyes widened.
“Poor Shizuka!”
“Of course, when Jounouchi came back and found Rishid looking for her, he panicked. He literally ripped the fire door off its hinges when someone told him they’d seen a girl matching Shizuka’s description being manhandled into the alley. Luckily he got there before they could do anything … really bad to her, but …”
“Anzu?”
“She was really stressed and frightened. Her Gift manifested for the first time. She nearly suffocated the guy who was holding her. Shizuka’s magic means she literally steals people’s breath.”
Yuugi’s own breath caught in his throat. No wonder Shizuka had objected to the way Jounouchi talked about Malik. She seemed such a gentle girl, but her Gift was designed to torture and kill. He felt an instant kinship with her.
“When she let the guy go, he threw something in her face. He was scared and he wanted her to leave him alone so he could run off after his pals. It was some sort of super-corrosive lighter fluid they’d custom made to use in a prank later. They got picked up by the police and admitted to that, but Shizuka’s eyes …” Anzu shook her head, still pressing her forehead against Aspasia’s warm neck. The mare turned her head to nibble at Anzu’s hair. “Jounouchi’s never forgiven himself. He thinks it was his fault, because he wasn’t there to protect her when she needed him. When they learned she was Gifted, the hospital refused to treat her. Mr. Pegasus brought them both back to the Academy that day and called in a doctor himself. Their mom had to come here from Tokyo to see what had happened. That was just under a month ago. Shizuka will never be able to see again, even if she did have that operation. And you know the worst part?”
“There’s something worse than all that?” Yuugi whispered.
“We each get a stipend, like an allowance from the school each month. Jounouchi got Mr. Pegasus to agree to transfer his into Shizuka’s bank account. With what he’d been giving her and what she and their mom already saved, they were only a few weeks off having enough to pay for the operation and her hospital stay.”
Yuugi’s heart went out to Jounouchi and his sister. Their story was sobering and put his own troubles into some perspective. Shizuka’s Gift was dangerous too, but she was coping, and not only with her Gift but also with losing her sight when she had been so close to having it restored.
A clattering from outside heralded the return of another horse. Yuugi glanced out to see Rebecca leading Socrates into the yard. As Anzu had predicted, he snapped at the stablehand who tried to approach, but docilely allowed himself to be led into a stall when Rebecca tugged at him. Yuugi looked back at Anzu, who was brushing Aspasia’s mane.
“Hey, Anzu? I’ll be right back?”
“What?” She looked up, but he had darted out of the stable and closed the lower half of the door behind him.
He hurried over to where he had seen Rebecca disappear and cautiously peered in. Socrates seemed gigantic close-up, his massive backside pointed right at Yuugi. A pair of small boots were just visible at his side.
Yuugi cleared his throat. When that didn’t work he called, “Hello?”
Clad in a riding hat that flattened her pigtails to spiky blond fizzles at the bottom, Rebecca’s head came into view. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “It’s you. The new boy,” she added, as if he didn’t know.
“Hi.” Yuugi gave a finger wave. “We didn’t get a chance to really meet before. I’m Yuugi.” He refrained from sticking out his hand. He wasn’t sure what Socrates would do and she had briefly shaken his hand during the assembly. Her handshake had been notable for its brevity and silence. Something about that bothered Yuugi, though he couldn’t say why. He found himself wanting to talk to her despite her coolness. Maybe it was because of what Anzu had told him about Jounouchi and Shizuka.
“I’m Rebecca Hopkins,” she replied. “But you knew that.”
“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t a real introduction.”
“And this would be?” She raised an eyebrow, glancing at Socrates. “This isn’t actually a very good time. I need to take care of Socrates now.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you talking to me while you brush him down and untack him.” Thank heaven for what he had gleaned from Anzu. He actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Rebecca’s other eyebrow rose. “You ride?”
“No.” He shook his head vehemently, remembering that damn donkey.
Her expression waned. “You can talk if you want, but don’t get too close to his rear. That’s an easy way to get kicked.”
“Good boy, Socrates,” Yuugi said encouragingly. Judging by the dirty look Socrates threw him, he was less than successful.
“He’s not a boy,” Rebecca corrected. “He’s a stallion. Miss Kujaku wants to have him gelded like the others, but I won’t let her. It would destroy poor Soccy – take away all his spirit.”
Yuugi thought he knew what gelding was and agreed. He found himself crossing his legs as he leaned on the door. “The Academy is really nice. Everyone here has been really nice, too.”
“That’s nice for you,” Rebecca said blandly. “Very nice indeed. Nice, nice, nice.”
“How long have you been here?”
She didn’t reply at first, but eventually said, “Since the beginning of last academic year. Mr. Pegasus made me a member of the faculty this September just gone.”
“I was wondering about that: how does it work, taking classes and teaching them too? Isn’t it difficult for you?”
“I manage.” She shrugged. “I’m not a little kid. Plus, there’s a pretty flexible policy on timetables. There has to be for people’s personal tutor sessions.”
“You’re with Miss Kujaku, right?”
“Anzu has been keeping you well informed, hasn’t she?”
Yuugi scratched at the back of his head. “She’s been showing me around, yeah. It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
“I guess. Yes, I’m Miss Kujaku’s student, although we don’t always see eye to eye on things.” Rebecca looked thoughtful as she unbuckled the girth of Socrates’s saddle and tried valiantly to pull it off him. She struggled under its weight.
“Would you like some help? That looks really heavy.”
“Well spotted, and no, I can manage.” She thunked it down in the straw, unbuckled her hard hat and dragged the back of her wrist across her freed forehead. It left a suspicious smear of something in its wake.
“Um, you … have something …” Yuugi gestured to his own forehead.
Rebecca blinked at him, and then looked down at her wrist. She swore and grabbed a handful of straw to wipe it off. Gobbets of brown goop plopped at her feet. “Is it everywhere? Oh god, is it in my hair?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Yuugi squinted. He couldn’t really see.
Rebecca bounded over and thrust her face at him, her cool demeanour gone. “Is it?” she demanded again.
“Uh, a little bit.”
She groaned. “Soccy! That’s disgusting! What on earth having you been eating? I’ll bet someone’s been bribing you to come in off the meadow with sugar cubes again. They always give you a runny tummy!”
Socrates wasn’t apologetic in the slightest. He bent his elegant head to sniff the saddle, swishing his tail like the two humans were flies he wished to brush away. Rebecca turned from Yuugi, shoulders hunched and face flaming. Yuugi was reminded that, despite her claims of maturity and position on staff, she was still very young. He reached out to touch her shoulder comfortingly.
“Really, you can hardly notice it,” he reassured her. “People will just think it’s chocolate from your lunch or something.
She made a noise into her hands that told him she didn’t think much of that idea. Her shoulders started to shake. Yuugi wondered whether he should fetch Anzu: crying girls were not his forte. Then he realised Rebecca wasn’t crying at all, but laughing.
“I’m sorry,” she snorted. “B-But … ha ha ha!” She pointed. “I bumped heads with you.”
Yuugi reached up to his own bangs and found them sticky and moist. His face screwed up in dismay. “Oh, eeeurgh!”
“D-Don’t worry,” Rebecca stammered through her laughter. “People will j-just think it’s … ha ha … chocolate from your l-lunch or s-something. HA!”
“What’s going on here?”
Yuugi turned to find Anzu standing behind him. She frowned in confusion.
“Yuugi?”
Rebecca’s laughter died. She straightened and her shoulders slumped. “Hello Anzu.”
“Oh. Hi Rebecca.” Both girls used the same flat tone. “Hey, Yuugi, are you coming? We’ve got time to wash up and get changed for dinner. One of the stablehands just gave me this message for you, since he didn’t know who you were.” She handed over a folded note.
Yuugi unfolded it to find a few lines of elegant handwriting. “It’s from Miss Kujaku. She says my new uniform is ready.” He was surprised. “Wow, that was fast.”
“C’mon.” Anzu hustled him away from the stable door. “Let’s hop to it. I can’t wait to see you all dressed up. You’ll be a real Academy student then!”
“Bye Yuugi!” Rebecca called. “It was … nice talking with you.”
“Uh, sure. Bye, Rebecca.”
Anzu stared at him. “You and she talked? What about?”
“Nothing much.” He smiled. “Chocolate, actually.”
For the life of her, Anzu couldn’t work out what he found so funny as they walked back up to the school.
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Post by cypsiman2 on Feb 6, 2012 12:14:18 GMT -5
Kisara was a dragon with beautiful, pale white scales and deep blue eyes, the coloration all that connected this to her normal human form. The power of this form was so great that it dwarfed even a professional body builder's, much less her meager strength. "Kisara." Her handler spoke to her; officially the man was listed on the register as a tutor, but only people on the outside were fooled by that. "You're going to spar with Koji Nagumo, we want to see how well you can do without flying or your breath weapon. Do you understand." Kisara nodded, knowing full well that her understanding was unnecessary. She stomped out into the middle of the vast arena, and saw Nagumo in his alternate form as a giant spider, though there were aspects of a scorpion to it.
"Begin!" He leaped into the air and landed right on her back, clamping his legs around her wings. She tried to shake him off but his grip was tight and he was spraying his webbing down at her legs and tail, making everything even more difficult. She turned her head around on her long neck to face him and chomped down at him. It was very awkward and uncomfortable, but Nagumo evidently decided that discretion was the better part of valor and leaped back off, the force pushing Kisara down onto her stomach. She brought herself back to her feet, and while his attacks had yet to penetrate her scales, their impacts were still painful. Then, in the nick of time, she saw his tail and the stinger about to get her in her side, and she barely managed to sweep her own tail to block it.
Suddenly, Kisara saw Seto Kaiba in her mind's eye, and somehow this gave her the strength to leap forward, grab hold of Nagumo's body with her claws, and bit down on his head, hard. "Enough!" She released Nagumo, who immediately reverted to his human form, writhing in pain; there was nothing wrong with his body, but until his alternate form healed, he would feel that pain like a phantom limb. "You need more work Kisara, he should never have been able to get one hit on you." She looked down at Nagumo as he was carried by medical personnel. "Bring in the next one!"
....
"Honestly, how can he think that Seto's powers are the least bit impressive?" Noa groused to himself in his room as he juggled tiny balls of energy in his hand. "Ice is of such terribly limited utility, and even that requires an enormous quantity of the stuff to matter in a fight. Pure force, like mine, is so much more efficient." He shot off the beads of energy towards the wall, then stopped them before they impacted. "I should focus on taking him down a notch, figure out a weakness I can exploit; his brother's no good, he's way too watchful over him and even if I did get a hold of him, that cold veneer of Seto's would melt away in brotherly fury and while I would survive, the collateral damage would so upset father." So Noa sat on his bed, contemplating to himself, trying to see if he could come up with anything, anyone that he could use against Seto.
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Post by Scribbler on Feb 8, 2012 18:06:42 GMT -5
[Incidentally, I mentioned before that Vivian is Physical Transformations Tutor. I thought I'd put it in already, but looking back I hadn't. I meant to say that she can turn into a Chinese dragon. Sorry.]
Being the son of the founder and owner, Noa had a plush room of his own in the main house, rather than having to stay in the smaller, sparser rooms of the Institute living quarters. He stared out of the window at the dying sunlight, contemplating his options. His resentment was a festering wound that refused to heal, no matter what preferential treatment his father threw his way. He loathed Seto and lived to see him fail, but since Seto was so obviously Gozaburo’s favourite, Noa could only claim small victories and had to come by them subtly.
Mokuba was the only thing that could stir Seto into acting irrationally, but the price of Gozaburo’s displeasure was too steep for Noa to pay.So Noa sat on his bed, contemplating to himself, trying to see if he could come up with anything, anyone that he could use against Seto. The problem was that, ultimately, what Noa wanted was for both of his adoptive brothers to be gone. In the beginning, he hadn’t understood why Father brought them home with him at all. He had a Gifted son already; why did he need another one? Especially one who came with a pathetic human as baggage. Father had claimed it was to give Noa someone to compete against so he could better himself, but Noa had his doubts. If Seto was just a tool for him to us, why did Father treat him so well? Why had he adopted Seto and Mokuba if they were no more important to him than any of the other Gifted he had collected later, when the idea of the Institute took hold?
Someone knocked at his door. Noa sprang off the bed and opened it to find a small child with aqua hair and disturbingly vacant eyes. He couldn’t have been more than five or six, but he acted like someone who had grown up, grown tired of the world and was just marking time before the time came to leave it.
“Your father wants to see you,” the boy said dully.
Noa wrinkled his lip. Espa Roba creeped him out. The eldest brother was the main consciousness behind their hive mind, having linked himself with his brothers when they were living on the streets and nearly died from cold. He had pulled each back from the brink of death, only to have his untrained telepathy merge their minds with. His own mind had carved out a hollow in each of theirs, nestled in and put down roots. Now his beloved brothers were now little more than puppets with less sense than animals. Their individual personalities had given way to his, what was left clinging to the central consciousness like barnacles on the hull of a ship. They had instincts enough to breathe and blink without being told, but if the original Espa didn’t direct them to eat, go to the bathroom, or pay attention when crossing the street, they would finish what they had started and die. All five boys had become one symbiotic being that spoke (and, when close enough together, moved) as one. The Meikyuu Brothers had taught Espa how to split his attention and function with more than one body doing more than a single task simultaneously, but the further apart their bodies were, the harder it was for his magic to handle complicated tasks. If a single brother had come to deliver a message to Noa, the rest couldn’t be far off.
“Why?” he demanded.
The little boy shook his head. “He didn’t tell us why.” ‘Us’, not ‘me’. Noa shuddered. Damn creepy. “He just said it was important and you’re to come at once.”
Noa obliged, shoving past to hurry to Gozaburo’s office. Outside, he straightened himself up, slicked back his hair and knocked.
“Come in.”
He inched open the door. “You wished to see me, Father?”
Gozaburo was arranged in front of his computer, hands steepled so he had to look over the top of his fingertips at Noa. His moustache twitched in a smile. “Sit down, Noa. I have something to discuss with you.”
Unless it’s which pole to dump Seto at, I don’t want to know. Regardless of his inner voice, Noa sat. Everyone had been given basic training in how to defend against telepathy – although if a telepath really wanted access to your mind, nothing short of taking cutting off their head would stop them. Noa kept his mental defences on high; you could never be too careful, especially when you were nursing a grudge the size of Mount Fuji.
Gozaburo leaned back in his chair. “You’ve been doing very well lately, haven’t you?”
Inwardly, Noa swelled with pride. Outwardly he didn’t react. Seto never reacted to compliments and it got him even more of them.
Gozaburo nodded. Ha! So it was a test! “Your magic has come along quite nicely. You’re younger than most students here, yet your abilities and control far outstrip theirs.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“It’s for this reason that I’ve chosen you for a very special assignment.”
If Noa had been a cat, his ears would have twitched forward in interest. “Just me?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.
“You and an illusionist.”
Illusionists were able to fabricate visions out of thin air, or cloak people’s appearances to make them look like someone else. Illusionists were masters of disguise and subterfuge. Noa felt a smile wanting to curve his mouth; Seto wasn’t to be a part of this. His interest, already piqued, went into overdrive. This would be his chance to prove to Father that he was the better son!
“I’ve stationed Espa Roba at intervals in the corridors around this office,” Gozaburo went on. “He’s creating a barrier of psychic white noise to stop anyone who shouldn’t from listening in. He will also warn us if anyone approaches while we’re talking.”
“This sounds serious, Father.”
“It is. You see, Noa, this involves going into an area I haven’t entered before, and one in which I’ve been hesitant to involve Kaiba Corp. There is a great deal of risk involved and the chance of discovery would mean being distanced from the company, but the rewards for success would be astronomical.”
Meaning that if something went wrong, he would be on his own and could expect no help from his father or anything associated with Kaiba Corp or the Institute. However, if he did well, he would shine above everyone else in Gozaburo’s eyes.
Noa set his jaw. “I won’t fail you, Father.”
“Excellent. Just the attitude I would expect from you, my boy.” Gozaburo leaned forward conspiratorially. “The area I’m talking about, Noa, is assassination. High profile, undetectable assassination.”
A cold finger traced down Noa’s spine and curled into his stomach. He swallowed hard, trying to think what would be the right question to ask. ‘Are you kidding?’ would put him at the bottom of Father’s estimation. He licked his lips and instead asked: “Who?”
“Not why?” Gozaburo said quizzically, something dancing behind his dark eyes. “Or how could I even consider such a thing?”
Noa looked at him, trying to project calm acceptance while mentally treading water and waiting for a shark to bite off his foot. “I trust your judgement, Father. If you think it’s necessary, it must be.”
“The target is the daughter of a Japanese politician. That’s all you need to know of her identity. Mei and Kyuu will implant her image and the floor plans of where she lives into your mind so you can identify and locate her. This will not be easy, Noa, but I believe you’re up to the task. Her father promised some very important people that he would pass some special legislation and then reneged on his word. He was warned what would happen if he failed to comply. Now is the time for him to learn that the Big Five don’t make idle threats.”
The Big Five: a quango of important men who were almost mythical in how much power they wielded. Kaiba Corp was an immensely powerful company, but in terms of ruthlessness and influence the Big Five reigned supreme. They were the movers and shakers of the underworld: human trafficking, drugs, illicit medical research, prostitution; there were very few pies they didn’t have fingers in. If Gozaburo had decided to go further into criminal transactions after his dabbling thus far, getting on their good side would mean a huge boost. This wasn’t just an assassination; he was courting their interest.
If Noa screwed up, he wouldn’t only disappoint Father, he would humiliate him in front of the Big Five. This was bigger than any assignment anyone at the Institute had ever been entrusted with before.
And Gozaburo had entrusted it to Noa, not Seto.
“You can count on me, Father.”
Gozaburo’s smile was sharp as a knife in a nightmare. “I know I can, son. You leave in the morning.”
….
Kisara sagged against the wall. Every muscle trembled, including some she didn’t have any more. The scorch that had blistered her tail-flesh still ached even though her tail had melted away. Falling to her knees, one wing shredded and blazing with agony, she had managed to revert to human, endure the post-training feedback and get this far towards her room before the full extent of her exhaustion hit. Seto had been right: she had checked herself out of the Infirmary too soon. Winning each and every one of her fights had left her battered and too drained to do more than sit in this corridor and let her eyes close.
She ran across the soccer field, the grass wet and slick against her bare feet. The sky above was dark, the bleachers empty. Every breath made her lungs burn, but she had to keep running. If she stopped, they would catch her; and if they caught her, she would die.
She felt like she was in some bad monster movie: I Was A Teenage Shapeshifter. Except these weren’t angry villagers with torches and pitchforks. There were flashlights, sure, but she recognised the people holding them. People she went to school with now glared at her, their faces twisted with fury and fear. They had ignored her every day for as long as she could remember, but now they were afraid of her and it made them want to hurt her. Their familiarity actually made them more frightening.
She couldn’t go home. Her foster family were already wary of her, since she kept sneaking off to practise transforming in the hills outside town. Her excuses only washed as long as they got their cheque each month. She doubted that would suffice now they truth was out. After all, hadn’t she just proven she really was the freak they thought she was by turning briefly into a giant lizard and bursting through the ceiling of the gym?
Her ruined clothes were back in the rubble somewhere, so she was cold and naked as well as terrified. She had thought she could keep the dragon hidden. She had thought she had her transformations under control.
She had thought wrong.
Eventually the mob cornered her. Fatigued and alone, she sank against the wall of the science block and covered her head. She didn’t even have the strength to transform and fly away. Each of her limbs felt like it was made of lead. She just hoped they would be quick.
The crowd shrieked. A blast of cold air hit her, making her shiver even more. Several things thunked into the ground in front of her, prompting the mob’s noise to fade quite suddenly. She risked uncovering her head and saw most of them running away across the soccer field. Several huge ice spears were rooted in the grass in front of her like a shield.
Someone leaped off the top of the wall, landing on her side of the shield. She didn’t recognise him, or know why on earth he was here, where those ice spears had come from, or what was truly going on. The figure stared at her for a moment. Then he reached up and over, tossing her his long coat like he really couldn’t care less whether or not she took it.
“Cover yourself up.”
Someone touched her shoulder. Kisara moaned softly, but the prodding continued. Eventually she cracked open her eyes, half-thinking she would see Seto and a wall of ice spears. Instead, she looked into a pair of worried, dark-ringed eyes.
“Strings?” she murmured.
The mute boy pulled back, giving her back her personal space. He gestured wildly at her, the hallways, and himself. He made two fingers of his left hand walk across the palm of his right and emulated them staggering and falling over.
“I’m all right,” she assured him weakly. “Just … just tired.” She tried to get up, couldn’t and fell back.
Strings rocked backwards and forwards in his crouch, not uttering a word but clearly distressed. Nobody knew his story. Presumably Gozaburo Kaiba did, but he wasn’t really very invested in the history of Institute students. He cared more about their futures and how that coincided with his own plans. Strings and his scarred throat were a mystery to the other students, and several were afraid of him and what he represented: their own fates if they left the Institute and tried to survive back in the outside world. Kisara liked him and he returned her small kindnesses by looking out for her at times like this when she had overtaxed her already frail human body.
Kisara offered him a reassuring smile. “I’m … fine.”
He shook his head.
“Training today was … just a bit … tough …”
He frowned; motioned with his hands. Kisara was no expert in sign language.
“Slow down, Strings. Please. It’s hard to … concentrate.”
Painstakingly, he abandoned whole phrases and spelled out one word letter by letter: I-N-F-I-R-M-A-R-Y-?
Kisara shook her head. She was just tired. If she had time to recover, she would be fine. “I’ll be okay, I just … I want to go to bed.” She levered herself onto her feet by walking her hands up the wall behind her. “If I can make it that far,” she muttered.
Strings looked thoughtful. He darted in front of her, hesitated a moment, and then made a gesture almost like pouncing. All his fingers splayed, he bobbed his hands up and down, eyebrows raised in question. She understood what he was asking. Usually she wouldn’t have let him, but tonight she was so dog-tired, and couldn’t let anyone see how much in case they reported it back to Seto. It would be just too embarrassing for him to find out how stupid she had been.
“All right,” she sighed. “Go ahead.”
Strings’s powers were twofold. He was able to generate and throw nets of magical energy that could capture and contain any target until he chose to dissipate the mesh. In addition, as he demonstrated now by flicking his fingers towards her and latching strands of glowing orange energy to various body parts, he was able to turn living creatures into marionettes under his control. He could choose whether the strands were visible or not, which meant Kisara and he were able to able to walk together back to her room without anybody realising she was near the point of collapse. He released her at her door and she slumped against the handle like she hadn’t just been walking normally up several flights of stairs.
“Thank you, Strings,” she gasped.
He stepped back, signing she was welcome and watching with concern as she closed the door and fell into a dark, dreamless sleep where not even her memories could follow this time.
….
Yuugi flopped back on his bed and let out a whooshing breath. As first days went, today had been a doozy. Meeting the other students and faculty, moving into the Academy, learning how life worked here, reuniting with Anzu after six long months apart, identifying his own magic and learning he was one of the most dangerous Gifted kids ever to pass through the Academy doors … it was a lot to take in.
“Understatement of the year,” he said to the ceiling.
Mana had come over at dinner, as he had sat with Anzu, Jounouchi, Miho and Honda at a table in the cafeteria, and handed over a handful of glow-in-the-dark stars with stickered backs.
“They’re to decorate your room,” she had explained. “Think of it as a house warming gift to welcome you.” Her smile had been infectious and he had felt compelled to balance on a chair to stick them up as soon as he returned to his room.
He stared at them, and then let his head roll sideways to where his brand new uniform hung from a hangar on his wardrobe door, and his newly minted timetable sat in the centre of his desk. Tomorrow real lessons would begin and he would learn was life at the Academy was really like. Since so many students arrived at the Academy mid-schooling and there were such disparate ages despite the tiny number on roll, classes were divided four ways – Beginner, Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. Age had little to do with it and you could be placed at different levels in different classes. Since Yuugi was sixteen and had been going to school since he was a child, he was in Intermediate for the regular subjects had been taking at Domino High, but Beginner for French and General Magic, which he had never studied before. He knew that meant he was with Shizuka for General Magic, while Anzu was in the Novice class, which was taught at a different time. She was still a Beginner for French, since she just couldn’t get the hang of it, but was Advanced for English since her dad was from New York and she had often visited him there after her parents divorced. Jounouchi was either Beginner or Novice for al regular school subjects, but because he had been at the Academy far longer than anyone else in their group, he was Intermediate for General Magic.
“The system may seem complicated at first, but it’s actually quite simple. It’s a way of keeping class sizes small so our teachers can spend more time with each of us and we can progress faster,” Anzu had explained.
“Or just yell at us more,” Jounouchi had grumbled.
“You’re just touchy because you can barely read and write,” Insector Haga had sniped as he went past, which had prompted a chase around the cafeteria that overturned a table and forced Honda and Bobasa to separate them. Jounouchi and Haga had been marched off in disgrace; only to return later dressed in frilly pink aprons to clean up the mess.
Yuugi wondered what tomorrow would bring. He hoped only good things. This was a new chapter of his life. He could put all the bad stuff behind him now.
Right?
He changed into his pyjamas, smiled that Grandpa had packed the ones covered in rubber duckies, and was claimed by a swell of homesickness so powerful it made the backs of his eyes prickle. He considered getting changed back into his uniform, but decided against it. Throwing on a robe to cover most of the ducks, he scampered along the hall and down a short flight of stairs to a bank of phones enclosed in small plastic bubbles. Cell phones weren’t allowed, after one student who could turn into electricity had accidentally transported himself down the phone-line and died when he dissipated into the network and being pulled in so many directions at once ripped his consciousness apart. The bubbles allowed for private conversation and there was a beanbag to sit on while talking.
Yuugi picked up the receiver and dialled. After a series of pops and crackles, a familiar voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Grandpa?”
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Post by cypsiman2 on Feb 8, 2012 19:03:07 GMT -5
[It's no big thing, but for some reason I can't help but imagine Vivian turning into her chinese dragon and offering students rides. XP]
"Yuugi!" Sugoroku Mutou felt life return to him after a day of dead and dull sensations, going through the motions whenever the occasional customer deigned to drop by. There were times in his past when he'd been on the verge of death, engaged in some insane gamble that would have cost him everything if he made one false step on the mono-filament wire of chance, but only after he'd been forced to send his grandson away, did he know the weary power of depression. "Is everything okay there? Are they taking good care of you? Is Mr. Pegasus really trustworthy?"
"Yes Grandpa." He heard his grandson's gentle laughter and felt relief fill his being. "Things are hectic and today was full of really weird stuff, but Anzu was there right away to greet me and show me around, explained everything." Sugoroku nodded; Anzu had been Yuugi's only friend on the outside, and when she had to leave for the Pegasus Academy, he'd been so depressed, so morose... "There are a few bullies, but most everyone here is friendly, and Mr. Pegasus is going to be my personal tutor."
"My word."
"Yeah, it's just...I don't want to hurt anyone like that ever again, and...Mr. Pegasus says he's the best suited to help me."
"I see." Sugoroku took it all in. "I'm glad you called Yuugi, but you should get back to bed; if you thought today was busy, tomorrow's going to put you through the wringer."
"Okay Grandpa...I love you."
"I love you too Yuugi."
"Good bye."
"Bye."
....
"So, you're Noa?" Noa looked up at the strange boy who stood before him; tall and lean with black hair done up in a bizarre and asymmetrical and held together by a hairband across his forehead with a backgammon pattern. His eyes were lined with a thick layer of eyeliner, and from one ear there hung an earring shaped like a die. "The name's Ryuji Otogi."
"So you're the illusionist my father was talking about?" Noa crossed his arms, conveying his judgment. "You sure you'll be able to do your part of the job."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that." Noa couldn't hide his shock when Ryuji disappeared, and his voice emerged from behind him. "After all, I don't have to worry about breaking anything during my practice sessions." That Ryuji vanished as well, his voice coming from above now. This time Ryuji was being blatant, making it seem as though he was standing upside-down on the ceiling. Then again, he was accounting for the effect of gravity on his clothes, hair, and accessories remarkably well; had he not been forewarned, Noa would have thought this was Otogi's real power. In that moment, he realized just how paltry his power and Seto's were compared to someone who could make someone see and hear whatever they wanted. "Should I worry about whether you can do your part?"
"Of course not! I am Noa Kaiba, the pride of the Kaiba institute and the most powerful gifted in my father's employ."
"Oh, that's not what I was asking about, little man." Otogi vanished and reappeared in front of Noa. He put his hand on his shoulder, showing him that he was dealing with the real deal. At least, Noa hoped this was the real Otogi. "Killing someone you don't know, premeditated, no threat to you at all, most people can't do that. I know I never could."
"If my father wants someone dead, then there's no room for doubt, that person must die." Noa felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle; who the hell was this guy to say that he was weak, that he couldn't do what had to be done?
"Damn. That Gozaburo's one harsh guy. Well, his is the hand that feeds me, no sense biting it. Come on, let's go see the MeiKyu brothers so we can get this over and done with."
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Post by Scribbler on Feb 14, 2012 7:13:58 GMT -5
Mei and Kyuu were a strange pair. The most generous word to describe them was ‘equal’: equally bald, equally solid, equally strong, equally hardnosed and equally loyal to Gozaburo Kaiba. If you feeling less generous you might also say ‘equally weird’, or substitute ‘equal’ for ‘identical’. They were twins of indeterminate age, their lack of hair making it difficult to tell. They liked to dress in Chinese-themed clothes, favouring long sleeves and high collars behind which they could hide their lethal hands and private conversations. In addition to being practised telepaths, they were also trained martial artists. If they wanted you to stay in one place so they could work their mental mojo, they could make a defenceless mind freeze the body it was attached to, or break the legs of someone with psychic shields. Noa disliked them, though he knew his father relied on their talents a lot. People were frightened of them, though as far as Noa knew they had never gone beyond the remit of Gozaburo’s orders, and Gozaburo preferred only doing what was necessary over gratuitous violence. Still, there was a sense of barely contained viciousness about the Meikyuu Brothers that demanded you always stay a step further away from them than was polite. “We have been –“ “– Waiting for you –” “– Ryuji Otogi and –” “– Noa Kaiba.” Oh yeah, there was the other unnerving thing about them: their complete and total mental synchronicity. Unlike Espa Roba, who had absorbed his brothers’ minds and made them extensions of himself, Mei and Kyuu were so in tune with each other they seemed symbiotic and finished each other’s sentences as a matter of course. Their synchronicity doubled their magical power, creating a power loop between them that made them two of the most powerful telepaths on the planet. Noa approached with a mixture of caution and bravado. “We’ve come for the information Father requested us to have.” The brothers exchanged a look. “He wants to appear brave,” they said in unison. “He wants to please his father.” They fixed two sets of impenetrable dark eyes on him. “Correct?” “Uh, of course. I am brave. Why else would my father have chosen me for this mission?” It was a rhetorical question, but they answered anyway. “You will –” “– Know shortly.” Behind Noa, Otogi suppressed a shiver. “Creepy,” he muttered under his breath. Louder, he said: “Can we just get this over with?” They transferred their flat gaze to him. “He is frightened of us. He does not want us in his mind. He thinks we are creepy.” They laughed, each in-breath and out-breath perfectly in synch. “So creepy,” Otogi muttered. Mei and Kyuu held out their hands, gesturing both boys forward to the centre of the round rush mat. Their rooms were a dark, claustrophobic olive colour and always smelled of incense. A pall of greyish smoke hung near the ceiling and never seemed to move, even though neither of them actually smoked. Beaded curtains separated sleeping quarters from the sparse space in which Noa and Otogi now reluctantly allowed themselves to be ensorcelled. Noa screwed his eyes shut. It wasn’t the most mature response, but the itchy-neck feeling of telepathy always turned his stomach. If he hadn’t known it was coming he probably would have just thought it was an itchy neck, but because he knew that at that moment someone else was inside his head with him, the sense of intrusion was difficult to bear. Abruptly, the room around him disappeared. He was instead on a street in front of a plush hotel, the entire scene frozen like a photograph. His sight zoomed in on a short girl caught in the moment of getting into a long black limousine. She had a shock of wild black hair that someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to restrain with a pink sparkly hairband. Her large eyes were such a dark shade of violet they looked purple, and were fixed on a tall moustachioed man behind her. They didn’t look at all alike, but he was looking at the girl with unmistakable pride and the deep love only a parent could wear so sincerely. Words arrived in Noa’s head to accompany the image, spoken in the Meikyuu Brothers’ distinctive harmony. Dashi Simlowe. High-ranking Japanese political figure. Adina Simlowe. His daughter and your target.The image vanished, replaced by the name of the hotel behind them: Entdecker Regency. Next to it a floor-plan in architectural blue burned itself into Noa’s memory. He could have drawn the whole thing out perfectly, despite having never studied architecture or ever drawn a straight line without a ruler. Charity ball. Three nights from now. Do not waver. Do not fail. Do not disgrace yourself, your name, or your beloved father. You must carry out your task no matter what.Details coursed into his mind: security specifics the Meikyuu Brothers had plucked from the right minds, particulars of who would be attending the ball, plus the fact it was a costume party. The rest is up to you, they ‘said’. Neither you nor your acts must be traced back to the Institute. You must succeed. Your father will not be pleased if you fail, whatever the reason. Make sure Dashi Simlowe understands why his daughter is dead and that the Big Five are not to be crossed.“I … understand,” Noa replied with difficulty. The act of speaking helped to snap him back into his own head when they released their grip on his mind. He was breathing hard and sweating a little. Beside him Otogi was the same; his backgammon headband damp with perspiration. “Good luck, littlest Kaiba brother,” the two telepaths chuckled. “We think you will need it.” Noa thanked them and left, still reeling. Being subject to their Gift was always unpleasant, but this time that wasn’t the only thing making him stumble a little as he walked away. He was beginning to think this was not just a reward of his father’s attention, but also some sort of loyalty test – one Seto would never have been able to pass for a simple yet incredible reason. One question occupied Noa’s thoughts and kept him quiet even when Otogi tried to start a conversation. Why did Adina Simlowe look almost exactly like Mokuba Kaiba? …. Isis woke with a start. Her first impulse was to sit up in bed, but the warm weight of Rishid’s cat on her stomach made her stay put. It took effort for him to keep his tattoos solid for a long time, though not as much as it took him to bring many to life at once. For him to have left the cat with her overnight meant he was worried about her. With a shaking hand, she reached out to stroke its fur and it pressed into her touch, its rough purr soothing her nerves. Given the nature of her visions and the troubles of her past, sometimes when she had nightmares it was difficult to tell whether they were just regular bad dreams or bad omens of the future. Her predictions weren’t linear, so it was entirely possible for what she saw to be symbolic rather than literal – or vice versa. Many times she had warned against one thing, only to find out she should have interpreted what she had seen completely differently: like when she thought a storm was going to create a leak and instead Ryota Kajiki’s water-magic got out of control and destroyed part of the roof; or when she had thought her vision of a swirling vortex meant a weather manipulator was about to manifest and instead Anzu Mazaki and her telekinesis arrived. Was tonight’s dream a nightmare or a vision? She brought the images into her mind before she could forget them: a faceless child running through shadows; water turning to ice that spiked outwards with deadly force; two children with dark hair blending into one and then bursting into flames; and a die from a children’s board game spinning in slow motion as it dropped through open space. Isis pressed the heel of one hand against her eye. Her head throbbed. She lay in the cool dark, willing it away. Perhaps it was nothing. The images were too fragmented for anyone to make sense of yet. She would have to wait and see how these new threads intertwined and what it may mean for herself and her students. The cat pawed its way up the bedclothes, dived under the sheets and curled up against her stomach. Stroking it, Isis closed her eyes and tried to sleep. …. Yuugi sat in class resisting the urge to scratch himself. His new uniform was well-turned-out but hellishly itchy. The bright blue blazer buttoned right up to the collar, with a plain white shirt and no tie beneath. While Yuugi didn’t miss the fiddly tie of Domino High, the high collar was stifling. Heaven only knew how he would cope when the real heat of the day started to set in. Jounouchi leaned across. His desk was right next to Yuugi’s. “Dude, quit pulling at your collar, you look weird.” Yuugi’s hand felt away as colour rushed into his face. “Sorry.” “Don’t apologise. I’m just telling you as a friend.” As a friend. The words sent an involuntary jolt of pleasure through him. “Thanks.” “No sweat. We guys gotta stick together, right?” He held out his fist. Remembering other boys’ behaviour back at Domino High, Yuugi tentatively bumped knuckles with him. “Cool,” Jounouchi said and settled back into his seat. Jounouchi’s personality was so incongruent to Anzu’s; Yuugi had wondered how he and she became friends at all. Now he was beginning to see how. For half an hour at the beginning and end of every day, students gathered in what was called ‘form time’, which he equated to homeroom back at Domino High. Unlike classes, which were organised by ability, form groups were arranged by age and didn’t seem to number more than about eight or ten students, which made sure those in them had to talk to each other. Yuugi had been placed in a form with Anzu, Miho, Jounouchi and Honda, whose desks were grouped together near the centre of the room. Yuugi also recognise Ryota Kajiki, the environmentalist aquakinetic; Mana Nejem, the teleporting girl and Mahaad Hakim, whose Gift he still hadn’t seen. Ryota and Mana were deep in conversation, but Mahaad was already glaring at Yuugi from the opposite side of the classroom. Yuugi wondered whether any more students were going to arrive, but when the door opened a tall woman dressed all in yellow marched in. “Hello, my lovelies!” she said loudly. “Good morning, Miss Wong,” chorused the other students in unison. There was a brief scuffle as everyone returned to their allotted seats. Miss Wong beamed at them, showing lots of pearly white teeth. Her eyes darted around the room, alighting on Yuugi quicker than he would’ve liked. “Ah, and I see you found the way here safely, Yuugi. Wonderful! I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine, won’t he class?” “Yes, Miss Wong.” “Wonderful!” she said again. “There’s a reason I call you all my lovelies.” Another pearly smile, and then she took roll on her laptop, snapping it shut at the end. “Well, my lovelies, continuing from our last conversation, has anyone had any good ideas about what we can do for Parents’ Day?” Yuugi’s head lifted. Parents’ Day? He recalled Anzu mentioning those: they had three a year, right? How coincidental that one was going to happen so soon after he arrived. His Grandpa would be able to come and see the school, which would sure set his mind at rest. Nobody spoke. Miss Wong looked at them. “No ideas at all. How disappointing. Last time Miss Kujaku’s form had a cake stall with ‘Welcome to Pegasus Academy’ written on all their baked goods. Surely we can come up with something better than that. Every form needs to either run a stall or put on a show of some sort to welcome the Parents before they look around and see the school.” Her brown eyes travelled the room, landing once more on Yuugi. “Yuugi Mutou! You’re a fresh brain; what ideas do you have for us?” Yuugi wished the floor would open up and swallow him. [Canon!Adina is Princess of Simlowe, from Seto Kaiba's video game in the Big Five filler arc --> yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Princess_Edina. Here, although the Meikyuu Brothers didn't specifically state it, she's the adoptive daughter of Dashi Simlowe.]
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Post by cypsiman2 on Feb 14, 2012 13:29:09 GMT -5
[Hah! I figured that was the case. The adoption figures as well.]
"Umm...maybe we could...have some sort of competition, a game where the winner would get a prize?"
"That, is, WONDERFUL!" Miss Wong bounded her way towards Yuugi, and though he desperately tried to look away, that became extraordinarily difficult when she wrapped her arms around his head and drew him in to her chest. "I can see it now, there'll be a roullette wheel, and a poker table, oh, this will be so much fun!"
"Miss Wong." Anzu cleared her throat, and Miss Wong released Yuugi with a harrumph. "Don't you think a less gambling oriented theme to the games might work better?" Yuugi could hear the firm tone in Anzu's voice as he pressed his face down into his desk, hoping that by time he had to lift it up again it wouldn't be burning red.
"Why? It's not like money will be changing hands, it'll be just like a raffle, but more interesting. Come on everyone, show your hands, who thinks this is a fantastically great idea?" Yuugi could hear a half-dozen hands quickly rising, and figured that he knew who most of them were. "There you go Anzu, majority rules, a gamble for the big prize is what awaits your parents when they get here. Now, what should that prize be?"
....
Rishid had no choice but to return the cat he'd sent to Isis back to himself, restore it to its true tattoo form; he could sleep while his power was active, but only after a fashion, his body recovered but his mind still drained. He did not dream during that time, and every source he'd read, ancient and modern, was quite clear on the importance of dreams, even for those who couldn't glimpse the future in them.
"Rishid." Shadi had appeared suddenly in his room, in defiance of Rishid's numerous requests that he enter through the door, after knocking for permission. He honestly didn't understand Shadi; one time he'd asked Isis to see his future, and after a time she said that what she saw was so fractured that it was impossible to follow. Mai Kujaku, after a long and difficult day, had confided to him over drinks that once she'd tried to peek into Shadi's mind, and felt like she was about to fall into a bottomless pit. There was more to this man, but what it was and how far it extended was impossible to say. "I need you to focus on Jounouchi and Honda during your tutoring session today."
"You know that tutoring is the sole discretion of the faculty member in charge of it."
"Be that as it may, you know I am right." The man may have been infuriatingly cryptic, but he did speak the truth.
"Very well." Rishid lacked the mental fortitude to continue the argument, and so got up to go and fulfill Shadi's request.
....
"Hmm, ten minutes to go before my tutoring session with Yuugi-boy." Pegasus J. Crawford turned the page of his Funny Bunny comic and started laughing uproariously. "What splendid comic timing!" Then he laughed even harder.
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Post by Scribbler on Aug 5, 2012 4:26:02 GMT -5
The knock on the door made him raise his head but not put the comic away. Who could that be?
“Enter!”
Timidly, the door opened. His secretary was a nervous woman given to bouts of shaky hands when some of the odder things happened around her, but she was a whizz at filing, had been trained in old-fashioned shorthand and could type faster than anyone he had ever seen.
“Mr, uh, Pegasus.” She never could get used to him not using his real surname; a definite stickler for the proper way of doing things, this one. “I was, uh, just wondering whether you would, uh, sign these papers.” She held up a sheaf.
“Oh, must I?”
“They are quite, uh, urgent.”
Sighing gustily, he set aside Funny Bunny and accepted the pile.
….
Yuugi stood outside Mr. Pegasus’s office, facing the secretary. He didn’t even have to open his mouth to introduce himself before she was gesturing him past her.
“Go right on in, dearie,” she said. “He’s expecting you.”
Mr. Pegasus sat at his desk, frowning at a piece of paper. His mouth was curved into a downturned line, his one visible eye scrunched as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. The expression wiped away like chalk off a blackboard when he saw Yuugi.
“Yuugi-boy!” The paper met the table and Mr. Pegasus stood, arms outstretched as if he was about to hug him. He didn’t, for which Yuugi was grateful. “So glad you could make it. You’re rescuing me from death by boredom.”
“It … this meeting was on my timetable, sir.”
“Hm? Oh yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, of course. Well.” He clapped his hands. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Yuugi just stood there, not sure what to do. “Uh …”
“It’s customary to sit down.”
He took the seat on the other side of the desk, sitting awkwardly and twiddling his thumbs on his knees. “Should I take this off?” He gestured at the pyramid focus.
Mr. Pegasus shook his head. “Not yet. I’m taking it you haven’t had a General Magic class yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Well in that case, we need to cover some basics.” He leaned back in his chair. “What do you know about how magic works, Yuugi?”
“Um …” Yuugi thought. He felt like he always did when a difficult question came up in class and he was picked on to answer. “Anzu said …” He stopped. A lot of his sentences lately involved the words ‘Anzu said’ or ‘Anzu told me’. If he wasn’t careful people would think he couldn’t make decisions for himself. “It … magic lives inside everyone,” he said slowly, pressing a hand against his chest. “Here.”
Mr. Pegasus nodded. “As you learned before, everyone has raw magic inside them – or potential magic, as it’s technically called, just like all energy is potential energy before we turn it into other kinds. We Gifted have more potential magic than most, which is why we’re able to do things ordinary people cannot. Every human on the planet has at least a small amount of potential magic within them, even if just a single unit. Depending on culture and time period, that single foundation unit is called a great many things: some call it ‘ki’ or ‘chi’, some call it ‘spirit energy’ or ‘life force’, while others call it ‘mana’ or ‘soul’. It underpins everything. It is the basic magic that animates all living things, from teeny weeny little ants and blades of grass to great big huge elephants and redwood trees. If it’s alive, it has that basic single unit of magic inside it. When that single unit disappears from the physical form, the physical form dies because it no longer has anything to power it.” He made a chopping motion. “Pfft. Just like that. Which isn’t to say the soul or whatever you want to call it has also died. I’m not a theologian, so I’m not going to try commenting on what happens after we snuff it. My speciality is working with magic-users and how they can cope with their differing amounts of power while they still have their bodies. Which is why you’re sitting in front of me right now looking like a baby chick after the fox breaks into the chicken coop. Don’t look so nervous, Yuugi-boy!”
Yuugi wasn’t nervous. He was thinking about Ushio. “Did … when I took Ushio’s magic, did I really steal his soul?”
Mr. Pegasus sighed. “There’s no easy or palatable way to put it.”
“So that’s a yes.” Yuugi hung his head.
“That’s a ‘you took some of it but not all of it’. You left enough for him to stay alive. I checked up: he’s still in the hospital in a coma.”
Yuugi nodded. “Will … can he ever get better? Can you regrow … what I took?”
“Regrow a soul?” Mr. Pegasus looked thoughtful. “I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it. I suppose it might be possible. The better idea, however, might be to check what happens to the magic you absorb from others into yourself. Do you convert it to pure power for your own use, or would a soul you’ve taken remain separate inside you? If that’s the case, I’m sure your next question would be: could you put it back in its original body if that body is still alive. And that, my dear Yuugi, is one of the things we’re going to work on in these sessions.”
For the first time since learning what had really happened to Ushio, Yuugi’s heart lifted. “I could fix what I did?” he asked breathlessly.
“I don’t know.” Mr. Pegasus spread his hands wide. “It’s important you don’t pin your hopes on the possibility, Yuugi-boy, because I honestly have no idea whether or not it would be even possible. This will be a voyage of discovery for both of us.”
Yuugi nodded but hope still spiralled up inside him. He could undo it! He could put right his mistake. The idea was so encouraging that it sparked others: he wouldn’t feel like a walking time-bomb if he knew that he could undo any damage he did. He would spend time with Anzu and his new friends without worrying about hurting them or –
“That’s the biggest smile I’ve seen from you since you arrived at the Academy!” Mr. Pegasus grinned. “I take it you’ll give it your all in our tutorials?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good, because we need to lay some ground rules. Number one: you will do exactly as I say and not question my instructions. If I feel you need to know something I will inform you of it at the appropriate time. Number two: you will remember at all times that magic is a wonderful, marvellous, tremendous thing, but it is also very dangerous if you take it too lightly. Magic is still very unknown to us. At the moment Gifted people make up very little of the population – maybe half a percent, or a full percent if we’re lucky. That’s still a socking great number of people when you think it’s half a percent of the whole world, but it’s not exactly a huge pool to draw data from. What we do know is that magic is bigger than all of us. You must work with it, never against it, and always, always, always respect it.”
Yuugi nodded vigorously.
“Number three: you will not lock yourself away in your room or isolate yourself because of your powers. You have a good friend in Miss Mazaki, but make room in your life for new friends too. This Academy exists for a number of reasons.” Here he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something other than what he actually did. “We Gifted aren’t the world’s favourite children. We have to stick together and support each other or we’ll all go to the big dustbin the sky.” He winked. “Or wherever our choose-your-preferred-name-for-the-soul-type-thing-inside-us goes.”
A sudden burst of noise from outside caught their attention. Yuugi wondered what it could be. Mr. Pegasus went to the window to check and turned back to him, beaming.
“Ah, an object lesson. Come here, Yuugi-boy. Miss Wong is outside performing her own tutorial.”
Yuugi came to stand next to him and peered down to where Miss Wong was standing on the grass, arms and legs akimbo. She was yelling at a figure in a red hat. It took a moment for Yuugi to recall the boy’s name out of the plethora he had heard yesterday. He cowered away from her tirade, yanking his hate over his ears as if to block her out.
“Dinosaur Ryuzaki,” said Mr. Pegasus, as if he could read Yuugi’s thoughts. Maybe he could. Yuugi still didn’t know what his Gift was and the headmaster didn’t seem in a hurry to share the information. “He’s not a good student, rather lazy in fact, but Miss Wong is licking him into shape.”
“She’s his tutor?” said Yuugi.
“And a very good one too. She’s in charge of students with physical transformation Gifts. Can you guess what that means?”
“They can, uh, change shape?”
“Got it in one!” Mr Pegasus beamed. “Now watch; Ryuzaki has been here some time but can only hold his Gift steady for a limited time, so it may be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.”
Yuugi watched, enrapt and slightly horrified, as Miss Wong advanced on Ryuzaki and towered over him, her cheerful yellow dress seeming to take on an intimidating hue. She spread her hands, saying something inaudible behind glass. Eventually Ryuzaki straightened and nodded, removing his hat and shirt and handing both to her. He sat down on the grass to pull off his shoes, socks and pants, before standing. Barefoot and trembling a little, his toast-rack-thin chest made him look like a street kid in need of a hot meal. Within seconds, however, his musculature bulged and he took on the appearance of a body builder with leather skin. His spine arched forward as his head swelled, face elongating. His backside extended, thinning into a powerful, whip-like tail. Yuugi could only imagine the crunching noise as the other boy’s knees reversed to compensate for the huge weight they were being asked to bear, or the sucking sound as his arms retreated into his chest up to the elbow and his fingers blended into two tiny claws.
Yuugi stepped back, away from the window. “It’s … he’s a …”
“I’m no expert, but ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’ is the closest we can establish. There are differences – the ridges along his back, for example, and that curious spike on the end of his tail, but the similarity is remarkable.” Mr. Pegasus didn’t sound at all perturbed by the sudden emergence of a giant lizard on his lawn. He clicked his tongue against his teeth and muttered, “Oh dear, those feet of his are going to leave imprints in the ground again.”
As if hearing the comment, the dinosaur swung its massive head towards the window. Beady red eyes fixed on them and it opened its jaws to roar. It had taken only one menacing step in their direction, however, when something equally gigantic rose up and wrapped a long blue-grey body around it. The dinosaur roared again in frustration, but the creature holding it tightened its coils, took that dangerous head between its own clawed hands and pressed their foreheads together. The dinosaur struggled, but eventually went still. A shudder went through its body, as if it had been hit by sudden fatigue, and it shrank back into the shape of a small, exhausted, very naked boy.
The blue-grey dragon looked in the window at Mr. Pegasus, rolled its eyes and spiralled its snake-like body down to the ground. As it went it also shrank, so that when it alighted on the grass it did so on delicate human feet.
Yuugi immediately averted his eyes from the also-very-naked Miss Wong. His face flamed from even the small look at her rounded hips and swaying breasts, so he didn’t see her take up the blanket she had left in preparation and wrap up the unconscious Ryuzaki.
“That usually happens,” Mr. Pegasus said with a sigh. “Ryuzaki has a powerful Gift, but he has a tendency to assume that it’s easily manipulated with minimal effort. As if anything in life ever is? He doesn’t put in the work he should because he has yet to learn to respect his powers properly, which means for a long time he could only make a partial transformation. Now he can transform fully, but his Gift gets away from him and makes him, ah, rampage is probably the best word, until Miss Wong is able to subdue him.” The headmaster gave Yuugi a pointed look. “Do you understand, Yuugi-boy? Respect and hard work are key. We here at the Academy will do everything we can to help you, even if the experience of being helped is pleasant, but the best course of action is to work hard, learn your lessons well and respect the Gift you’ve been given without fearing it.”
“I understand,” Yuugi said, cheeks still hot. “And I will. I promise.”
“Good. Then you should get along well here.” Mr. Pegasus clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the family, Yuugi-boy.”
....
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Post by cypsiman2 on Aug 5, 2012 13:35:30 GMT -5
"Anzu, you are distracted." Isis said as Anzu tried to telekinetically juggle a half dozen objects, each one a different size, shape, consistency, and mass; Anzu had to handle each one just right to keep them all moving in the same path and at the same speed. Unfortunately she'd just managed to smash two of the more brittle objects together, breaking them.
"I'm sorry Ms. Isis." Anzu carefully put down the remaining objects, then sent the broken ones into the trash; that at least did not demand delicacy. "It's just really stupid, that's all." A flash of the offending memory dashed before her mind's eye, and thus so did one of the test objects; that Isis was able to stop it before it hit either of them illustrated the importance of tutors in such matters.
"Regardless of how stupid you think it is, you should air it out."
Anzu sighed. "Fine...in class today, Miss Wong, she was, she..." Just trying to say it made the whole thing seem 1000 times stupider than it already was.
"Did Miss Wong give you a bad grade?"
"No." Anzu bit down on the inside of her cheek. "She, um, she hugged Yuugi." Had Anzu any pyrokinetic potential, she would have immolated herself; as was, she merely felt like she was burning to a crisp.
"A hug?" Isis had a quizzical expression on her face.
"A tight, up-close hug." Anzu saw that Isis still wasn't getting it, so Anzu quickly leaned forward as though hugging someone shorter, and the light of realization dawned in Isis's eyes.
"Ah. Well, in the time that I've known her Vivian has always been physically affectionate with those she considers cute, and your friend would be her type."
"She's not the only one." Anzu muttered; Miho, Mai, Mana, Rebecca, they'd all shown at least a little sign of interest in Yuugi.
"Anzu, I have to tell you that I don't have much personal experience in this area so I could be wrong, but do you have a crush on Yuugi?"
"Wh, what?!" Anzu wished she could scramble back, but alas there was not room for that. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Your emotions are the source of your power, and so you need emotional clarity to control that power; if I am mistaken, please tell me and we can resume your lesson."
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Post by Scribbler on Aug 15, 2012 17:28:35 GMT -5
Anzu pressed the backs of her hands to her cheeks to try to cool them. This never would have happened if Rishid had been able to take her session like usual, but he was busy and Isis had stepped in to cover for him. It wasn’t that Anzu disliked the woman, but she would never have even brought up about the hug with Rishid. He wasn’t the kind of man you talked to about crushes and things.
“I don’t like Yuugi that way,” she mumbled, eager to get off the topic. “We’re best friends. I’ve missed him, and we’re close, but I don’t fancy him or anything.”
“Fancy?” Isis ticked her head to once side as if she didn’t quite understand the phrasing.
“I don’t have a crush on him,” Anzu said quickly, shoving down her inner voice when it tried to disagree. “Having him around has just … thrown me for a loop, that’s all. I guess I’m being a little too possessive of him because I’ve missed him so much and now he’s here I don’t want to share him. Or something.”
Isis nodded, giving the idea credence. “That is possible. The discovery of his powers has been rather traumatic for him.”
“It has?” Anzu was intrigued and alarmed. Yuugi had been so cagey about his Gift she still didn’t know what it even was. “How?”
“It is not my place to say.” Isis folded her arms. “In any case, he is not my concern at this moment; you are. I think we shall move on to fine control, since we must find a way to exercise your skills of concentration in the face of emotional upheaval. You cannot allow yourself to be distracted when you use your Gift, Anzu; you must have absolute control in small tasks so you can build up to absolute control in larger, more dangerous tasks.” She glanced at the trash. “Such as juggling potentially painful objects.”
Anzu groaned. “Does that mean cross-stitch?”
“It does.”
“I hate cross-stitch. I can’t even do it with my real hands.”
“A positive attitude is the first step to success.”
“That sounds like something Rishid would say.”
Isis smiled. “Thank you. I consider that a compliment.”
….
Noa looked out the train window and considered the countryside flashing by. He and Otogi were on their way to Tokyo, switching between different means of public transport and different faces to distance themselves from the Institute as they put distance between themselves and the Institute. Currently they were posing as two old ladies wearing ancient fox-fur stoles and threadbare black coats. Noa bore an old-fashioned bonnet while Otogi had fashioned a bleach-blonde beehive hairdo for himself. Previously they had been a mother and daughter, which had required Noa to consume four bags of sweets at Otogi’s insistence to ‘add to the realism’. He now felt quite sick but refused to admit it.
“You seem to like turning us into women,” he murmured at the window, though he was talking to Otogi. They were alone in the carriage, but he kept his voice low anyway.
“Would you rather be a dog? Crouch low and I can pull off a brilliant Saint Bernard that’d go brilliant with this outfit.”
He shot the older boy a dirty look. “Be serious.”
“Why?”
“This is serious business.”
Otogi snorted. “You did not just say that.”
Noa didn’t understand why he found that funny. “Stop laughing.”
“Dude, lighten up.”
He glared back out the window. Otogi whistled.
“Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”
“That’s a ridiculous phrase.”
“Do you even have a sense of humour?”
He refused to dignify that with a response. Away from the Institute, Otogi was a lot less respectful than he should have been. They fell into awkward silence until Otogi reached into his bag and pulled out a battered romance novel.
“For realism,” he said with a wicked grin that looked almost sinful on the old woman’s wrinkled face. “And for fun.”
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Post by cypsiman2 on Aug 15, 2012 18:05:47 GMT -5
Mokuba hadn't been paying attention where he'd been going and as such didn't notice the person in his path until he walked right into them. "Sorry!" Mokuba was prepared to bow down, scrape and genuflect, do anything that whoever it was would demand of him.
"It's okay." Mokuba found himself startled by the soft voice, and when he looked up he was now startled by how gentle and pretty she was with her blue eyes and her pale white hair that came down to her waist. "I wasn't watching myself either." She held her hand out, Mokuba took it and lifted himself up. "I'm Kisara."
"Mokuba." He felt a sudden urge to pat himself down and didn't understand why.
"I know; I've seen you with your brother. He's very kind with you."
"...We're all we've got." Mokuba's voice turned small; his brother was kind to him, but cold to everyone else, closed off. How much longer could he live like that?
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to open any old wounds, I just think its fascinating the way Seto changes around you."
Mokuba felt his neurons flash. "You, you wouldn't happen to want to get to know my brother better, would you?"
"What makes you say that?" Kisara stepped back in shock.
"Just a hunch." He was sure of it now. "I can help you; I hardly ask anything of Seto, so I'm pretty sure I can get him to agree to at least talk with you for five minutes."
Kisara leaned over and smiled at him. "If you could manage that, I think that would be wonderful." She mussed his hair a bit before standing back up. "I'll try not to get my hopes up."
"And I'll try not to let you down." Mokuba ran off back to his and Seto's room.
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Post by Scribbler on Aug 15, 2012 21:24:33 GMT -5
Seto was at the desk writing something on a sheet of paper. He looked up when Mokuba burst in.
“Big Brother!”
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Seto jumped to his feet. “Are you okay? What’s happened?”
Mokuba raised his hands. Okay, so entering that way was a bad idea when Seto had such a hair trigger with his powers. “I’m fine, it’s okay, I just need you to come with me.”
“What?” Nonplussed, Seto was a few seconds slow to react when Mokuba grabbed his hand and dragged him from the room. “Mokuba, what’s going on?”
“There’s someone I need you to talk to.”
“What? Who?”
“Just someone.”
“Mokuba, what are you –?” Seto cut himself off. He stopped dead in his tracks, pulling his hand from Mokuba’s grip. “Oh. You.”
“Hi Seto.” Kisara gave a little finger wave. “How’s it going?”
“She’s the one you wanted me to speak to?” Seto demanded of Mokuba.
Mokuba wondered at his brother’s tone. These two already knew each other as more than passing acquaintances? “Uh, yes.”
“What do you want, Kisara?”
“I didn’t want anything in particular.”
“It was my idea, Seto,” Mokuba said helplessly. “I thought you could use some time away from … whatever it was you were doing.” It sounded lame even to him. “Hey, why don’t we all go and do something fun together? Y’know, as a trio?”
“Something fun?” Seto couldn’t have sounded more scathing if he had tried, though he kept his eyes on Kisara.
“Yeah,” Mokuba persevered. “We could go to the Rec Room and play some games.”
“You’re not allowed in there.”
“I could sneak in. You could sneak me in. Or you could just walk me in. None of the other students would dare to argue with you, Seto.”
“That’s true,” said Kisara. When he glared at her she shrank a little, but added, “Well it is true.”
“C’mon, Seto. Please?”
If Seto wasn’t willing to have even a five minute conversation with her alone, Mokuba would have to chaperone them – even if it did mean risking his own neck if he was spotted somewhere he shouldn’t be. His future at the Institute dangled on a thin thread, but surely this would be allowed. He didn’t have actual school lessons until this afternoon, with a terrible teacher Gozaburo had employed to keep Seto sweet; or if not sweet, then at least to mollify him with the knowledge that his little brother’s education wouldn’t be non-existent as long as he danced to Gozaburo’s tune. Until then he felt compelled to make Seto interact socially with someone other than himself.
“We could play Monopoly,” Kisara suggested. “Or cards. Do you know how to play Blackjack? Or I could teach you poker.”
“I don’t know either, but I’d love to learn,” Mokuba said hastily. “Please come with us, Seto?”
Seto fixed them with an imperious eye. Finally he said, “Miss Chono will be here at midday. We stop then.”
Mokuba resisted the urge to cheer. “Okay!”
Kisara’s smile was worth it too.
….
“Yo!” Jounouchi practically launched himself into the seat next to Yuugi at lunch. “What’s up, Yuugi? How’s your first day going?”
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Post by cypsiman2 on Aug 16, 2012 0:24:01 GMT -5
"It's...it's going." Truth be told, Yuugi remembered very little of his tutoring session with Pegasus; after seeing Dinosaur Ryuzaki turn into a dinosaur, Pegasus had him take off the stone pyramid around his neck. Then his face became sinister and...then Pegasus was standing over him, putting the pyramid back around his neck, looking slightly winded.
"Yeesh, is Pegasus keeping your mouth shut or what? All this mystery and suspense, your gift better be the most badass awesome thing ever or I'm going to have to punch someone right in the nose."
"Who?"
"Whoever's in charge of this stuff, deciding who gets what Gift; I mean, it's right there in the name isn't it? People don't just get powers like this out of nowhere, don't you think?"
"I, I suppose that makes sense." Very little of anything made sense as of late of course; even Anzu was acting a bit off as of late, something that Yuugi couldn't pin down. "Where is Anzu anyway?"
"Eh, her tutoring session's probably run long, it wouldn't be the first time."
"Is she having trouble with them?" Yuugi noted the ambiguity of his question; was them referring to her powers or her instructor, or something else?
"Nah, she's just a total teacher's pet, can't leave until she's gotten her latest lesson down just right."
"An attitude you could learn to embrace yourself a little more." Anzu said, now standing right next to Jounouchi, hand right by his ear and ready to grip it.
"And they say TV rots our minds; it's thanks to TV I knew that was going to happen."
"And yet you said it anyway." Anzu said with a smile as she sat down next to them. "Where's Honda?"
"There." Jounouchi pointed over to the corner, where Honda and Miho were talking.
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Post by Scribbler on Sept 25, 2012 11:58:35 GMT -5
Miho balanced on one foot, weight canted to one side in a way that seemed half provocative, half complete innocence. Honda scrubbed the back of his head with one hand as he talked, gesturing back at the school. Miho shook her head and danced away, actually pirouetting as she went. Honda came over and sank down beside them with a sigh.
"Trouble in paradise?" Jounouchi asked.
"She has an appointment with the nurse."
"For what?"
"'Girl stuff'." Honda crooked his fingers in air quotes. "I didn't ask for details."
"Good decision," Jounouchi assured him. "Braver men than us have trod there, buddy, and they didn't come back alive."
"You guys are such chauvenists," Anzu harrumphed.
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Post by cypsiman2 on Sept 25, 2012 21:35:48 GMT -5
"You mean you'd like us to pry into the dark and mysterious world of your lady business when it comes up?"
Anzu rolled her eyes. "How about you not call it 'dark and mysterious', just over half the people in the world are women, not much room for mystery there."
"Hey, is it my fault that you women call it 'powdering your nose' and junk like that? How are men not supposed to feel excluded?"
"Men are the ones coming up with those stupid rules in the first place, you don't get to turn around and act like you're the one being inconvenienced Jounouchi."
"Guys?" Yuugi spoke up, drawing their attention away from each others faces, mere inches apart. A cool air seemed to descend over them.
"I'll watch what I say better."
"I'll avoid blaming you for your entire gender."
"Thanks man." Honda patted Yuugi on the shoulder. "I'll be sure to pay you back for nipping that battle of the sexes in the bud."
"That's okay." Yuugi smiled in a mixture of nervousness and relaxation, an expression as unstable as...a very unstable thing. "I just don't want anyone missing out on their lunch." Yuugi's stomach growled, so he took a big bite out his burger. Too big as it transpired, as a generous sum of ketchup spurted onto his shirt.
"Here you go Yuugi." Quick as a whip Anzu had napkins out for him, and Yuugi took them even quicker, hiding his face until the practically ketchup-red blush went away.
....
"Ah, there you are!" Miss Chono said with a smile that did not reach her eyes. "I've been looking for you all over the place."
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