This chapter has been done for awhile now I just never had time to think about posting it. I hope you all enjoy it and please leave comments, good or constructive criticism. I’m hoping if I get more free time soon I can start working on it more, but we will see.

Warning: This chapter has mention of nudity and graphic violence. I don’t see much point in a warning since its all written, if you can imagine it then I don’t think the book is causing you any mental harm, but here’s the warning anyway.


Chapter 6: Life As Life Is + Uniforms

The small caravan pooled threw the gates onto Anna’s driveway. The house itself was so big it was borderline a mansion. After the trucks dropped the wreckage off in the back yard the whole group went to the houses day room to discuss who they where and they’re plans for the future. After Ryo, Anna and XE where done it was the two new member’s turn to introduce themselves. May popped out of Ryo’s back and nearly scared Anna to death. She described herself as an old friend of Ryo’s, who just happened to be dead and that she was now possessing Ryo so she could lend her spiritual power to her. Ryo gave the rest of the details. When it was Miyuki’s turn she acted as if Ryo should already know her and also took on the position of another friend of Ryo’s. Despite it only being early in the afternoon by the time they were done Ryo asked Anna if she could borrow a guest bedroom to get a little sleep. The battle had left her quite tired. May apologized to her explaining that it was because using up all their energy will make her tired like that. Ryo just smiled and said it was ok as she went off to bed. Anna asked XE if she could give her a hand with something and the two of them left for the back yard together. Being the only one left in the room Miyuki quietly took off the coat of Ryo’s she had been wearing and placed it to her nose. After smelling it for a moment she curled up into a ball on the carpet and fell asleep hugging the battle torn piece of clothing.

Anna’s house had two servants, a maid and a butler. It was odd that when the butler walked into the room a few moments later with the naked cat girl lying on the floor he did not seem in the least bit bothered. He walked right over to her without missing a beat, picked her up, and placed her on a couch. He called out to the maid, who answered and entered the room. With her long black hair in a single ponytail behind her she brushed off the front of her maid uniform and walked over to Simon. She also looked at the cat girl unconcerned and walked off to retrieve a blanket for the sleeping girl. After tucking in Miyuki on the couch they both moved outside to speak with Anna.

Anna looked up and saw the two servants enter the backyard and stopped sorting the rubbish of the two mechs for a moment and addressed them. “Oh, hello Simon. Hello Suzan.” Looking around her she realized that this whole thing may seem kinda odd to them even though they were not showing it. “Guess I should explain a little, right?” The butler gave a gracious bow “If you don’t mind madam.” Anna explained the entire situation to the two servants. They listened intently and made no effort to interrupt her as she spoke. After the whole story was told the maid bowed and said “I will call your parents so that they are ready for this when they get home. I will leave some details out but make sure to soften them up so it’s not as bad when they see it for themselves.” After the maid walked off Simon turned around to do the same “I will look into the incident at the school and find out if there is anything that will prove useful to your friend” He gave a quick glance to XE and returned to the house. When Anna turned back to XE she was staring at the door the two servants had used. “What’s the matter?” XE broke her stare away and looked at Anna “Nothing, we should finish up this work. You should organize those small parts and leave these bigger ones to me.”

After Anna’s parents got home and recovered from the initial shock of everything that had happed they decided to all sit down and have a talk. First Simon revealed that the government was denying the attack at the school and town, the whole thing was being covered up. XE pointed out that this could be a good thing since it would make it difficult for them to take the wreckage back without admitting the incident. All the damage that was cased that day was written off as a small natural disaster. After a long discussion it was decided that until the entire incident was over everyone would stay at Anna’s house. Miyuki was denied her frequent demands to share a room and bed with Ryo so in the end everyone was given their own room except May who had to stay with Ryo. Anna’s parents also volunteered to register both XE and Miyuki as being residences at the house and enroll them in school. The next day Suzan showed up at the house in the afternoon with several bags full of clothes for Miyuki and XE including their new school uniforms. That night they all went to sleep ready for school the next day.

Running along a wall Ryo looked at the scenery as it passed her by. She always had a lot of fun going to school and today was no different. She felt the wind threw her hair as she leaped over a stack of garbage cans and onto a small brick wall. As she hopped off the wall and ran across another yard she thought to herself how she almost had this rout down perfectly, the only thing she was still figuring out was this next juncture. Normally she would move left and jump over the wall into the alleyway but she was thinking to herself that if she went straight she should be able to reach a major road just over a slightly higher wall. As she reached her turning point se looked at the taller wall out in front of her and moved towards it, she could clear it if she really tried. Leaping up she grabbed the top of the wall with her finger tips and swung her legs over the top with ease. Clearing the wall legs first she could not see what was on the other side until her head reached over the top.

The scene on the other side was very odd. There was a girl backed against the wall with tears in her eyes, it looked like she was struggling. In front of her where two men in black suits. One of them was standing beside a black car parked on the side of the street with the door open, the other had his hand wrapped around the young girl’s wrist as she struggled and cried out for help. Without thinking Ryo moved in air so that she was falling right at the man grabbing the girl and he had probably the best view he could have ever hoped for before Ryo’s foot connected flat into his face. The man fell backward towards the car as Ryo rebounded off of him and cough her foot against the wall just a little above the black hair of the surprised girl and leaped foreword again. The man with the footprint on his face started turning to face the high jump girl and reached into his coat. At the same moment the man draw a hand gun from his coat Ryo dropped her school bag. Quickly pulling a wooden sword from its sleeve she leaped off the side of the wall at the now armed man. The man tried to aim but did not have the time; the airborne school girl swung the wooden sword in a sideways arch and hit him in his elbow. Everyone present could hear the sound of bone shattering as the man’s arm was pinned against his side and his weapon fell to the ground. Ryo finally landed between the men and the girl, sword out in front of her pointing at them both. With a brief look at the crazy blonde both men jumped into the car and drove off tires squealing all the way. Once they were out of sight Ryo turned her attention to the shocked girl standing against the wall.

The girl straitened herself out quickly and giving Ryo a deep bow and said “Thank you so much for saving me! My name is Anna.”

Ryo sat up in bed and rubbed her head. Looking around she was a little confused at first as to where she was until she realized that she had stayed at Anna’s house. Is that why she had that dream about when she first met Anna? Still in a light daze she also realized that her alarm was still going off. She could hear the cute meowing sound of the mechanical cat alarm as it went on in a monotone voice. Reaching out she searched until she found something soft next to the bed and bopped it quickly until it stopped. Then she realized two very important things. One was that the thing she just hit was way too big to be her alarm clock and second was that Suzan had picked her up a new uniform for school because she had not gone back to her apartment yet. So how could her alarm clock be here now, rolling over in bed she looked to where the sound had been coming from and met face to face with Miyuki crouched down beside her bed.

Ryo jumped in the air with a start and nearly fell off the opposite side of the bed despite lying on a queen size mattress. As if she had been woken up by the shock May suddenly popped out of Ryo’s back and started yelling at Miyuki “What are you doing in Ryo’s room Miyuki?” May waved her arms frantically in the air as she said this. Miyuki stood up proudly and held a fist out in front of her in a triumphant way while stating “In the past I may have failed, but no more! I will always perform my first and most sacred duty! Too wake Ojo-sama up in the morning!” You could almost see the fires of passion burning in Miyuki’s eyes as she all but yelled this last part. Then without notice she stopped, turned to Ryo and with a quick bow said “I’ll see you down stairs at breakfast.” And just like that she ran out of the room leaving both Ryo and May staring after her with jaws hanging open. Ryo climbed out of bed and started getting changed.

May: “Onee-chan, can I ask you a question?”
Ryo: “Sure May, go ahead.”
May: “They did buy her clothes didn’t they?”
Ryo sagged her shoulders and let out a long sigh “Yes, they did.”

Once Ryo was all dressed she headed down stairs and walked into the dining room. Sitting around a large table where XE, Miyuki, Anna and her parents. All the young girls where now in their school uniforms including Miyuki who was sitting in a chair at the table pouting and looking quite agitated. Standing directly behind her was Simon combing his short black hair down and fixing his uniform. Not only was his butler uniform ruffled and messed up it had small cuts and scrapes all over it, even his face had a couple of small marks. Seeing Ryo look at him concerned he smiled to her and said “Miss Miyuki was opposed to wearing clothes to school today, but after we discussed the matter at length we came to a mutually beneficial agreement.”Anna chuckled “Which means he dragged her up stairs, forced clothes on her and dragged her back down here for breakfast.” Miyuki stuck her tongue out at Anna who simply smiled and looked to Ryo “Miss Ryo you should sit down and have some breakfa..” her words trailed off as she caught sight of Ryo. After a moment she asked “Miss Ryo, why are you still wearing the bunny ears.” Ryo reached up and played with the fussy headband she was wearing before answering. “Well I figured that we may be attacked by more of those scary people at any time so I should stay ready.” Ryo held up her school bag with two swords strapped to it. One was a cloth sleeve that held a bokudo and the other was the sheath that XE had given her for the techno-sword. “XE was nice enough to give this to me so I’m going to keep it close by as well.” XE shook her head “it seems like she could be of use now, but only if she has the prober equipment.” May piped in quickly while sticking out of Roy’s back and looking at the bunny ear headband “I think their cute.” Anna’s dad who seemed a little flustered for some reason looked around the table at all the girls and said “I would prefer that none of you girls fight, especially you Anna.” He gave her a stern look. “But there’s no tilling if those things are going to come after you guys or not, so it would be best if you were prepared. But I still want you to run if you at all can.” He looked at each member of the room in turn but when he got to Miyuki he stopped and averted his eyes as if by instinct.

After her father’s speech Anna sat back for a second trying to come up with a way of telling Ryo that the ears where not helping her any. As she thought her eyes wondered the room until finally laying to rest on Miyuki, and an idea hit her. It almost seemed like an excuse but she quickly jumped out of her chair and ran out of the room yelling “Wait one moment please.” After Anna left Ryo sat down at the table and feeling a little awkward being at such a big house with such a big table she started thanking Anna’s mom and dad for having her. Ever since she had saved their daughter Anna’s parents had treated Ryo like she was some kind of hero. Even if it was kind of true it always made her very uncomfortable. She didn’t save Anna because she was expecting some kind of reward. She did it because it was the right thing to do. Ever since that day Anna’s parents had taken on paying for her rent. Since she got enough money sent to her by her parents she insisted that she did not need it. But they had made an agreement with her landlord and since he was getting guaranteed timely payment well in advance he had no complaints and went right along with it no matter what Ryo said. So in the end she accepted their kindness weather she liked it or not.

After a little while Anna finally came back down stairs hold something in each of her hands. She ran over to XE and quickly placed something over her ears. They looked like little curved cup like contraptions that could slide open in the middle. They where pink on the bottom, white on the top and fit right over XE’s real ears making funny shaped fake ones. From her other hand Anna produced a pair of cute little panda ears attached to a thin elastic band and placed it on her head combing her hair over the band to disguise it. When she was done all members of the party with physical bodies had funny ears on their head. May looked over Ryo’s shoulder at Anna “I know I said that they where cute but that doesn’t mean you had to go and get them for everyone.” Anna turned to May “I’m trying to help Miyuki out. If she walked around with those fuzzy ears then it would draw attention. But if we all do it then it will help take the focus away. It will just look like we’re trying to make a fashion statement. It was kinda Ryo’s idea.” May patted Ryo through the shoulder “Good job Ryo!” Everyone seemed to understand and everything was going great until Ryo started talking. “Well I don’t really think it was that much my idea but I do have one question.” She looked at Anna with a curios look and asked “I where mine to help me be more agile, and I understand those for EX. But what do the panda ears help you do?” You could hear a thud resonate threw the room as everyone hit the floor at once, falling down from the shock of Ryo’s words. Sometimes Ryo’s ignorance was cute to a fault. Anna was the first to recover being the most used to Ryo’s line of though. As she stood back up she said “Well, they’ll help me climb trees.” Ryo smiled and nodded her head “Ok, I understand!” And with that everyone sat down to enjoy a nice breakfast before heading out to school.

Arisa stood at the edge of the brick wall where it met a long chain link fence. One hand was holding some of her short light blue hair out of the way of her face. She had been in the same school for over two years and had walked the same bath every day. She often saw a couple of girls walking to school together, one with blond hair and the other with black hair. They seemed to be good friends and she never really paid them much mind in the past. But today was different, today school was meaningless. All that mattered was seeing the two girls once again, and all their little friends. She continued to peek around the corner intently waiting for her pray to show up. Suddenly she heard a voice talking behind her and with great irritation turned from her post to address whatever nuisance was distracting her. Standing there where two boys that attended the same school as Arisa, being the quite girl she had never really had that much contact with the other students and that held especially true when it came to boys. But for some reason these two had stopped to bother her today, they probably didn’t even know who she was even though they were in the same class. Of the two boys a skinny looking one with short brown hair had walked forward and held his hand out in an inviting manner while saying “hello there cutie, if you’re heading to school why don’t you let us walk you, and heck if you don’t want to go to school you could just come with us and have some fun instead.” He winked. “What do you say?” Arisa suddenly heard a sound from the street she had been watching and spun back around to see what it was. The girls she had been waiting for where at that very moment turning the corner at the other end of the street and heading down the road towards the school. Without even considering the two boys she went to run after them and as she did the skinny boy reached out and grabbed her wrist. He had started to talk “Hay hold on a second...” but cut off suddenly as there was a flash of light that reradiated from Arisa for just a brief second.

Arisa pulled the hand of the boy off of her wrist and tossed it aside nonchalantly. Back behind the brick wall the first boy who had been out front was staring blankly at the spot where his hand had been only a moment before and now only a bloody stump remained. Feeling a strange sensation in his chest he took a single step back and looked down. At his feet several of his own internal organs covered in dark blood where spilling from a hole in chest about a foot in diameter. His one step back ended with his feet giving way and his head tilted to the right towards his friend as he fell backwards towards the ground. His last living vision was of his childhood friend, falling forward. The spot that should have been occupied by his friends head was now a stump of a neck surrounded by a red and purple mist that was slowly lowering to the ground. The two bodies fell into the dirt and bled a puddle of blood that eventually formed a pool around the spot.