Part Sixteen : A New Development; Kerai and Kaboku's Dismay
Listen to No More Words
Kyuuteki smiled bitterly as he realized that, yes, his plan was going to work after all. Kyuuteki chuckled; now he knew why he had felt that Kaboku and Kerai were going to play a big part in getting the senshi so that he could use their powers. He had called for the two a few minutes ago, and he could hear light footsteps getting closer to the door.
Kyuuteki pretended not to care as he noticed Kaboku and Kerai walk into the room.
“This can’t be good,” Kerai whispered to Kaboku when she saw the look on Kyuuteki’s face. Kaboku was almost sick to his stomach when he also noticed the rare smile on his master’s face. As much as they didn’t want to believe it, they both knew that nothing good was going to come from this meeting.
As they walked up to the throne, the two bowed, and they waited for Kyuuteki to speak the words that they knew they were going to hate. Kyuuteki’s smile grew larger as he saw them approaching, and he could no longer contain his excitement. This was going to work after all.
“As many times as I have wondered how the two of you would benefit me,” Kyuuteki began, and he eyed the two of them to make sure that they were paying attention. Kaboku looked up at his master innocently in an attempt to look as though he expected nothing bad to happen. Kyuuteki chuckled again. “It has come to my attention exactly how you two will benefit me. For some reason, I had never thought of this before, and it seems to me like it is the only way to go.”
The only thing that kept the two from speaking was their fear of what Kyuuteki was going to say next. “You will go down to earth,” Kyuuteki began his instructions. This wasn’t going to be so bad, Kerai and Kaboku thought at the same time. “And you will live there as you study the senshi,” Kyuuteki finished. They were right; nothing good had ever come from Kyuuteki’s smile.
“Excuse me?” Kerai managed to summon up the guts to ask.
“Housing arrangement have already been made, and you will live on earth for a period of time. During that time you will find the senshi, and you will find out their weaknesses. I warn you, it will be hard to find a place to start from,” Kyuuteki said as he stood up.
“Master...” Kaboku began, but he was silent when Kyuuteki cast him a glare.
“I do not think that this mission will be a challenge because you will be working together, and you only have one goal. This is your chance to redeem yourselves.”
There was a long pause of silence in which Kaboku and Kerai both tried to come up with some excuse so that they would not have to go down the earth. “It will not be as bad as you think,” Kyuuteki said in a pathetic attempt to reassure the two of them. “Two others will be working with you, and I am sure that they will be a great help.”
Kaboku raised an eyebrow, and Kerai had to think for a few seconds as to who those two might be. She reached a conclusion that she did not know anyone, so she listened up. “And who might they be?” Kaboku asked; somehow he knew that the answer was not going to be good.
Kyuuteki’s eyes gleamed in excitement. “You especially know who they are.” It only took a second for Kaboku to make the connection, and his eyes widened farther than they had in a long time.
“They couldn’t possibly be able to do it,” Kaboku began stuttering. Kerai soon caught on, and her jaw dropped down as far as it would go.
“Raven and Sparrow have agreed to get their act together, and they have sworn that if they fail I have permission to execute them,” Kyuuteki explained.
“They might as well have picked out their coffins and dug their graves,” Kerai said in reference to the human tradition of burying those that died.
“They are not capable,” Kaboku began.
Kyuuteki rose from his seat, walked down the steps, and stood five feet away from Kaboku. “Do you question my judgment again?” Kyuuteki asked. Kaboku, having remembered his past experience when he questioned Kyuuteki, remained silent, but he bowed low.
As Kyuuteki turned to go back to his throne, Kaboku turned and quickly walked away. Kaboku had made it clear that he disapproved of the entire situation, but he took this time to walk away so that Kyuuteki would not have a chance to get back at him.
“I...” Kerai began to express her own disapproval, but she also stomped out of the courtroom. Kyuuteki shook his head as he sat on his throne. It wasn’t clear to him why the two were not happy about such as interesting mission. Kyuuteki had thought that they would enjoy the mission because they both had a passion for studying about humans even though they would never live there on earth.
Kerai breathed out slowly as she walked out of her room and looked around the apartment. The small apartment was barely big enough for the two of them, and it was decorated in cream and brown, which happened to be each of their least favorite colors. On one side of the room there was a television set on top of a bookshelf, which contained many different books. Kerai turned her head to see the kitchen, which was behind her. Kerai shuttered as she pictured herself trying to work the strange appliances that were found there.
“I don’t know how Kyuuteki expects us to live like this,” Kaboku said as he also walked out of his room. Kerai had to keep her eyes from showing her reaction as she looked at Kaboku. He was wearing dark jeans and a dark gray shirt that brought out his full height.
“I’d say that I won’t last more than two days,” Kerai said as she also expressed her opinion of earth. Earth was too light, and the blue sky let in too much light for either of their liking. Virgo, where the Dark Realm was, had a gray sky, and it rarely ever let light in, and they were used to that. Such a blue sky with little or no clouds was beginning to irritate the two of them.
Kaboku walked out onto the balcony, and when he came back he shook his head as if trying to get rid of something that fell on him. “To clean,” he said. “I don’t know how these humans can stand to drink water and breathe air that is clean and without any good minerals and toxins. They make it seem as though those things are bad,” Kaboku said angrily.
Kerai walked slowly over to the kitchen, and she eyed to things that lined the counter tops. She had to admit that she was getting a little hungry, and she was almost willing to give in to the temptation of fulfilling her needs with human food. She looked into the freezer, and she found a box that said something about turkey.
Although Kerai had never had any experience with this thing called turkey, the picture of it looked pretty appealing, and she followed the instructions exactly as they were written on the box.
“What is that?” Kaboku said as he looked up at the sound of the microwave humming.
“I’m cooking,” Kerai said proudly as she entered the living room. Kaboku rolled his eyes as he could only guess what this would mean.
“It’s going to take some getting used to,” Kerai said as she sat down on the couch.
“At least we only have to stay here for a little while and not live here permanently,” Kaboku said as he walked around the room as he tried to get a better feel of his new lifestyle.
“If it would have been permanent than I would have committed suicide,” Kerai stated flatly.
And that would be to everyone’s benefit, Kaboku thought to himself.
Suddenly, the two of them could smell something strange, and they raced into the kitchen. The box with the instant meal had exploded, and the microwave was a mess. When Kerai opened the microwave, a puff of smoke escaped, and they had to cover their faces before they breathed in the thick smoke.
When the smoke cleared, Kaboku took out the box, and he put it on the counter before he was burned. Slowly, he turned his head in Kerai’s direction. “You didn’t take it out from the box?!” Kaboku yelled.
Kerai looked around in shock. She had followed the directions of the box exactly as they were written, and not anywhere did it say that she had to remove it from the box.
“Common sense, Kerai, common sense,” Kaboku said as he dumped the mess into the sink, and he put some water on it. “You know that little voice inside your head? Well, humans aren’t the only ones that have them, and they survive pretty damn well because they listen to the voice,” Kaboku lectured.
“I followed the instructions just like they were written,” Kerai pleaded.
“Common sense,” Kaboku continued to repeat as he tried to fan out some of the smoke with his hand, and he shook his head.
Kerai walked slowly back into the living room, sat on the couch, and she watched as Kaboku tried to put the mess into the trash can without burning himself and getting his human-looking clothing dirty.
“The last thing we want to do it draw attention to ourselves on our first day,” Kaboku said as he still couldn’t get over Kerai’s stupidity. He walked into the living room, and he realized that he liked the feel of the fresh air in his lungs much better than the thick smoke that he had just inhaled. That feeling almost scared him half to death.
“We should start looking for the senshi now. The sooner that we find them, the sooner we can get out of here,” Kerai said as she got up from the couch, grabbed her sweater, and opened the door.
“That’s a good point,” Kaboku said as he also got his sweater from the closet, walked out of the door, and locked it behind him. “But don’t think that you’ll get off easy.” Kaboku promised himself that he was not going to get mad at Kerai because then the yelling between them would never stop, and that would surely draw people’s attention, but he did want to warn her. “We don’t even have the faintest idea of where to start.”
“I’m sure we’ll bump into them,” Kerai said as her expression turned to disgust, as she had to adjust to the pure air.
The two walked down the stairs and began walking down a small street in order to get to the main street. Kaboku checked his pocket to make sure that he had brought a map with him because he could imagine them getting lost in this stupid human town.
“This is going to be very interesting,” Kerai said as they turned onto the main street, and they noticed the vast amount of people.
Kaboku widened his eyes as he could not believe what he was seeing. Across the street from where he and Kerai were, there was an extremely pretty girl that had just left a building. Kaboku knew very well that this girl was too pretty to be naturally like that, and the more he thought about it, the more he knew that he had seen her somewhere before.
He dared to hope that the girl that he was looking at was Sailor Virgas, but he knew that finding a senshi so quickly in such a large city was next to impossible. The girl looked directly at Kaboku, and he could tell by the way that she was looking at him that she also felt something familiar about him.
Kerai grabbed the sleeve of Kaboku’s shirt, and she pulled him down to where she only had to whisper in order to be heard. “Is that who I think it is?” Kerai asked, although she did not try to maintain eye contact with the girl.
“I’m almost certain of it,” Kaboku said, and he turned away as he talked to Kerai so that it would not look as though they were staring at Dorei.
“It can’t be,” Kerai said as she pulled on Kaboku’s sleeve even more. This situation was far to good to be true, and neither of them could believe it. Before they knew it, the young girl began turning a corner, and they ran after her. Just as they reached the intersection where they wanted to cross, the light turned red, and they were forced to wait until there were no cars on the road, or the light turned green.
The light turned green a moment later, and the two rushed forward in search of the girl that they had seen. They knew that the situation had been too good to last, but they could almost imagine capturing one of the senshi.
It was impossible. The girl had turned the corner and they didn’t know where she had gone after that because there were infinitely many answers. Kaboku and Kerai both let out a sigh as they realized that they hopes of finding a senshi were crushed.
“A little flat,” Dorei’s voice instructor stated after he heard Dorei sing a small piece in Latin.
“I knew it was, but I just can’t get my voice to fix it,” Dorei said.
“A little bit of practice should be able to fix that,” the instructor said with a smile. Dorei smiled at her instructor, and she was glad that her instructor was nice unlike Shakaku’s saxophone instructor. Right now, he would be yelling at her and telling her to get her act together.
As luck would have it, a few minutes later, after Dorei sang another piece, this time in Japanese, Shakaku’s music instructor, Bon Bonsuo knocked on the door, and he walked in.
“Ah, Dorei!” Bon Bonsuo said as though he liked Dorei as though she were one of his students. “I need you to give this to Shakaku,” he said as he handed her an envelope. Dorei narrowed her eyes, and she suspected that something bad was inside the envelope.
“By the way,” Bon Bonsuo said before he left, “you’re still a little flat.” Dorei had to grit her teeth in order to keep herself from saying something back to him.
“I think we’re about done here,” Dorei’s instructor said as she noticed that Dorei hadn’t taken the other instructor’s comment. “I pity this girl Shakaku that has him as a teacher. He needs to learn that negativity leads to low self esteem.”
“Thanks, Kitsumi-sensei,” Dorei said as she gathered her things in order to leave.
“Next week Monday at three,” the teacher reminded Dorei of the next lesson.
“All three songs?” Dorei asked before she walked out the door.
“I want you to do what you can, and perfect what you do instead of getting through all of the songs with them sounding horrible,” the teacher said as she raised her eyebrows.
Dorei nodded and then walked down the hall and down the steps.
Dorei walked on a main street for a while without really paying attention to what was around her. Dorei came to her senses, however, when someone’s powerful gaze caught her attention. Across the street, Dorei noticed a young couple walking together. The young man caught Dorei’s eyes, and they maintained direct eye contact for some time.
She watched as the couple walked down the street, and when the guy tried to look at her again, she turned and looked a different way. Something about the couple seemed really familiar, and Dorei felt uncomfortable not knowing what it was.
When Dorei noticed that the couple was no longer looking, she turned a corner. She couldn’t believe that Kaboku and Kerai were down on earth and dressed like humans, but she really hated to take the chance, so she ran. She turned one more corner where she knew that the two would get confused because there were so many possibilities where she could have turned.
Dorei continued to run until she knew that she was safe. At least that’s what she hoped for.
Back to Part Fifteen ~
On to Part Seventeen