“Kuroshiro, you ready?”
“Oniken, I would be lying if I was.”
“Listen. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to show those damn Yakuza that tradition doesn’t mean anything. You can paint your body, you can poison your liver, and you can make your wife submit. But you know, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you make your mark.”
“Are you sure? If we get caught with these service pistols…”
“Who’s going to catch us? The cops barely have weapons up to snuff with ours. Now come on. Akataka is waiting.”
Kuroshiro opened his eyes. It was daybreak when he awoke from the sleep that was invaded by a memory from his past. What happened next he couldn’t remember.
He phased through a futon. He didn’t remember setting it up unless someone else did. It appeared to be Karin, who fell asleep on a couch in the library.
Kuroshiro looked at the sleeping kemonomimi and decided to let her be. He meant to talk with a more important person. If he was correct, she was directly below him.
He didn’t like using his phasing abilities but at this point, he wasn’t about to get lost in this mansion again. Concentrating on his powers, he began to phase through the floorboards.
Kuroshiro could see all that was under the woodwork. He saw spiders, cobwebs, small centipedes, and the occasional rat. This is a mansion. Surely, it needs a maid or something. Americans do that, right? Reaching the penultimate level, he decided to poke his head through the floorboards, see how one would react.
Akira, wearing a black concert tee and faded jeans, was in the common room from last night and had just finished talking to an unfamiliar person. She was tan all around, what with tan skin, brown hair, and what seemed to be brown eyes. The only thing that seemed different were here highlights, a bit of faded red. It’s a bit like Ela, now that I think about it. Her dress attire seemed perfect for the hot weather, white tank tops and white shorts with black sandals.
“If you need any help, people will be around. We’re trying to figure our next mo- and there’s our resident spectre now.”
“What? You have a ghost in the house? Isn’t that a bit weird?”
“I prefer the term su-piri-to, if you don’t mind.”
Kuroshiro came down from his perch and landed on the floorboards. The new girl was obviously shocked by his grand entrance. With a smug bow, he introduced himself.
“The name is Kuroshiro, Einherjar Kami and resident psychopomp of Hibiya/Shinjuku. May I never see you in my shop.”
Her dumbfounded look on her face said all he needed to know. “Bellinda. Dragon-human.” Then her face contorted in sourness. “You know, it just makes you look like a showoff, that entrance.”
This girl and I will get along juuussst fine.
“Pleasure to meet you, Be-rin-da.”
Akira turned to Bellinda with a slight edge, trying to focus on the growingly tense situation. If this was an anime, there would be a big, honking drop of sweat staying perfectly still on her forehead. “Well, this is great and all, but I’m sure Bellinda wants to set up shop in a bedroom somewhere so I’ll leave her to that. We still have two bedrooms downstairs, one of the second floor. You can also be the first to take a couch if you want it.”
“I’ll figure something out. I’m 120, you know. Not exactly the youngest here, that’s for sure.”
With that retort, Bellinda took her belongings, travel case and duffel bag and all, and turned to leave. Before doing so, she swiped a box of matches from the counter.
Akira just dropped her head in surrender, her hair dragging like Sadako Yamamura. “The more these kids show up with ridiculous ages thinking they’re all that, the more I want to tear them apart sometimes. Don’t quote me on that.”
Kuroshiro looked at her with a stupid grin on his face. “Trust me. I wasn’t exactly the forgiving type. I’m still not exactly meru-si-furu, but you get the point.”
He realized that he was starting to phase into the basement so he quickly focused his energy, giving off a bit of disturbance. Akira’s ear’s twitched from beneath her hair. “Did you feel that?” she muttered with quiet edge.
“Oh, that was I using a bit of energy. By the way, you should really clean under your furoru-borzu.”
“More pressing things here. Stuff like saving the world from evil scientists, preventing hormonal awkwardness, dealing with these…wonderful people. All the while, I’m on my own, Sebastian says he’s in Pennsylvania or some other and some of these people don’t even know what he looks like! You’re included in that group.”
“I guess. One thing though. You and Sebastian are-.”
“Vampire and werewolf, yes. Don’t believe for a second the crap Hollywood dishes out.”
“Ah, right.”
Akira sat with sheer awkwardness while Kuroshiro stood in equal awkward. She laid her head on the small wooden table. “Two minutes ago, I found out Keefer left. Of course, he didn’t even say good-bye. He really doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. A lone werewolf in today’s society is a dangerous thought. God, why does this happen to me now?”
“You mean Keefer or your nightly esu-kapeidosu with Griff?”
She shot up. “How did you? Why did you?” She calmed slightly. “Please don’t tell anyone."
“I’ll do my best, but dead men telling no tales is just a myth.”
“地獄に落ちる”
“今それはただ残酷で”
“I’m serious!”
“Fine.” Kuroshiro critically added. “I’m just saying to need to rai-ten up a bit. If you and Griff want to have time tu-keza, go right ahead. Just know life still continues. Keefer made a decision.”
“A sucky one.”
“True, but it’s his decision. What you need now, though, is a cold, stiff drink.”
“Last I checked we don’t have alcho-.”
“Cabinet, second to the left from that door.”
Akira stood up and trudged over. She opened the cabinet and pulled out the last of the Damrak and Midori. “Where and when did you get this?”
“I got that as a package from my friend two night ago. Pretty nice when you consider the bottle could probably have been sold to get me back to Tokyo on a plane. Who needs planes, though, when you can fly, am I right?”
Akira looked at him with a dumbstruck face. “You got this. Two nights ago. While I was out.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
Her face lit up like a firecracker and she started quietly dissecting her speech into a loaded gun pointed at Kuroshiro’s face. “If any of this poison got on one of the children’s lips, I will gladly escort your sorry ass back to where you came from. I don’t really know who you are, or why you are here, but if you do anything to hurt them, you will be sorry.”
“Re-lakusu. Colette made sure the younger kids had that drink you Americans like. What was it? Su-puraito? Besides, I’m not stupid enough to give a kid alcohol. The drinking age is, what, rafu-rii 19 in Japan, 21 here? Now, are you going to have the drink or what? No one’s foro-sing you.”
Akira looked at the bottle and sighed. “Fine, one drink won’t kill me. If it’ll help, good. If not, no more alcohol is to enter this house. 理解？ ”
“美しく。”
She grabbed a glass and poured the gin. Before Kuroshiro could stop her, she downed it. Her reaction was immediate.
“OH MAN, THAT’S NASTY! HOW DO YOU…AAGH! IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL A GOOD TIME?”
“You should have mixed with something. At least the Midori. Damrak is a cocktail gin, not a straight gin- DON’T TRY TO SPIT IT OUT! THAT STUFF IS WORTH SOMETHING!”
黒白
Eventually, Akira calmed down. Her spirits actually rose a bit. Though, alcohol was now strictly banned in the mansion.
“So, you’re just here to supervise and protect from spirits?”
“That’s correct. If I try to infuru-ensu the decisions of the MCC, just ignore it. To you, I’m just another member.”
“Good. We have an understanding. Now, if you could give me a background on your story.”
Kuroshiro abridged the story he had told the others. “Well, my real name is Heiji Tarō and I was born in 1973, died in ’93 due to gang fai-orensu. That makes me 38. I look different from other Japanese people because I dyed my hair. Also, my eyes just of ended up this way. It’s very rare to see a buru-eyed citizen, unless they have Western blood. The only eku-sepu-shon is the Ainu to the North, and they’re just Russians who missed the whole continental drift thing. So, the doctors cha-kudu it up to medical atavism.”
Akira nodded with stern interest “So what exactly does a psychopomp do?”
“We give spirits a peppu talk before they face jya-jyu-mento. Small stuff, except when the spirit has many buro-denzu from Earth, such as forgotten tasks and last remarks.”
Akira sat silently. “Sounds like you’ve got a full plate. So how did you get here?”
“Well, the funny thing is-.”
“お父さん！お父さん！どこにいる！助けて！”
Kuroshiro heard the crying like a shout in the silence. “What was that?”
“What?”
“That crying, someone was shouting for help!”
He took a running stance and phased through all the walls. He reached the outside. The afternoon Virginia sun beat down; it’s heat shining through his body. The green grasses and verdant trees blocked the unknown from the mansion. He scanned initially on the ground. He jumped and rose in the air, scanning the grounds. No one was outside. No one was crying.
He touched down onto the soil, Akira waiting for him. “Kuroshiro, no one is here.”
“But I heard something! I thought someone was…was.” He stopped and grabbed his katana out of its sheath, about to charge into the forest.
“Heiji Tarō, stop!”
The spirit turned to look at her. Akira stood her ground, her fists balled.
“I am NOT losing another friend today! No one is here! Now, get back in the house!“
Kuroshiro dropped the katana and looked at her bloodshot, tearing eyes. Her eyes had seen too much over her young twenty-two years. How much had she seen?
Tomorrow’s rain will wash those stains away
There’s something in our minds that always stays
------------------------------
I needed to write this chapter. I don’t know why, but it felt good to write it.
I included Keefer and Belinda as per recommendation and I hope I didn’t screw them up.
It was hard to really know how to work with Akira. Hope she wasn’t too overbearing.
Next time, I’ll write more on Akira and Heiji and how they connect. I may include Griffin for some real fun *evil laugh*.
Until next time.
