10Just because we enjoy imitating GoRA's style in our writing, this is a scene selected at random from our sequel to WFT A Growing World to serve as a preview. As was suggested in one of the reviews, AGW will not focus as heavily on the red clan, but never fear. All of your favorite characters will still be featured in some way or another. Hope you enjoy this excerpt.
Still dressed casually in his "undercover uniform," Fushimi paced back and forth through the foyer of Shizume City's main hospital. Scepter 4 really did make his life most miserable, he thought with a frustrated sigh. Since their arrival, he hadn't had a moment to stop, a moment to check on Akihime. He nearly got a chance to ask himself where that idea had even come from when a female voice came through the terminal pressed against his ear.
"Sorry for the wait, Sir. How may I help you?" She asked pleasantly.
His steps faltered. This was so obviously the secretary he had spoken to when he first called the number. He had no idea why the captain had given him the responsibility of contacting Akihime's family. He hated phones; he hated communicating; he hated family. There couldn't have been a worse choice for the job. Yet Munakata had given him the task with his same, sickening, omniscient smile he had worn every time he assigned his subordinate something that day.
This was the third phone call Fushimi had made and the first that did not go straight to voicemail. Although, with how much trouble they had given him so far, he basically wished he could have just left a message this time also. The secretary who just spoke had also originally answered the phone. She had been polite in agreeing to transfer him to Hotaru-san's extension.
The executive also had answered cordially. That was where things started to turn sour.
Introductions: "G'day, Hotaru-san, this is Fushimi, Saruhiko with Scepter 4."
"Excuse me? Where are you from?" The man replied as if he'd never heard of the Fourth Annex of the Legal Affairs Bureau's Family Register Section before.
Trying not to grumble aloud at the evidence of her parent's neglect toward her, Fushimi clarified, "Your daughter's work."
Hotaru acknowledged them then, but when the young man explained that his daughter was in the hospital, he didn't show much concern. In fact, he experienced a sudden interruption and put Fushimi on hold. As if something could possibly happen at work that would be more important than your child's hospitalization. He waited, impatiently.
He didn't bother to keep the phone to his ear then. They left him on hold for 30 minutes. With nothing better to do while he waited, Fushimi dropped onto a couch in the lobby, set the phone beside him with the loud speaker turned on, and stared out the window. The person who finally picked up the receiver again was not even in the same division of the company as Hotaru.
When they started transferring him all over the place was when Fushimi started pacing. He really could not tolerate white collar diplomatics. After he had explained the same story word-for-word to four different people in four different departments, he found himself transferred back to the same secretary he had talked to at first. She was quick to apologize when he explained the situation and promised to transfer him to Hotaru right away.
So frustrated by the phone call, Fushimi was oblivious to his surroundings. He collided with a dark haired girl on crutches that was entering the hospital. Not paying her much heed, he mumbled a less than concerned, "'scuse me."
The phone picked up again, and the secretary explained, "I'm sorry, Hotaru-san really is very busy right now. I'm going to put you through to his voicemail."
Fushimi sighed. After the run-around they put him through, he really would have preferred just leaving a message from the start. He prepared his words while the phone rang and waited for the beep to cue him. Right when it was time to speak, the sound of hate cut through the room.
"You bastard," the words growled a title that Fushimi was familiar with being called by that point.
Ah, Misaki's here, he thought, turning toward the source of the insult. There was no chestnut haired skater in the lobby, however. The bitter accusation came instead from the aforementioned girl on crutches. Puzzled, Fushimi glanced around to make sure she wasn't yelling at someone else, but they were the only two people around.
Completely confused, he asked dumbly, "Hah?" What did this random person have against him?
"Ergh," her complaint sounded as if anger could burst forth any moment, "after what you did, you don't even recognize me."
His eyes widened just slightly at the thought that he should have recognized this girl that he considered a stranger. If she was about to attack him, he should probably try to remember what he did. Not that she could beat him in that condition anyways... She was all black. That should have been a clue to him. From her coal colored hair that didn't even reflect light and her eyes that resembled abysses, to the jogging suit she wore—not for looks but for the comfort of her injured leg—it was all black. She seemed like the dark cloud that hung over the head of depressed people on particularly bad days.
It wasn't ringing any bells with the blue clansman. Deciding things were about to get heated, he hung up the phone without leaving a message and slid it into his pocket. "What's your problem?" He demanded.
Shocked by his remorseless attitude, she repeated his words. "What's my...what's my problem? This!" She gestured to herself, lifting her crutches to emphasize them and the brace on one leg that went from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
Fushimi raised an eyebrow at her. If it was that important a confrontation, he would surely have remembered her. He'd say she was mistaken, but it wasn't like he had a common appearance to confuse or that he was unlikely to have hurt someone. Still, when he thought of people he had fought or wronged recently, there was nothing similar to this story. Even if there had been one or more girls, she wasn't among the list.
Well, if he couldn't recall, then it obviously hadn't mattered.
With an insincere look, he shrugged and offered, "Sorry 'bout your leg."
She was no more convinced than he was apologetic. "You think that's enough? That if you say 'sorry,' I'll just forgive you? Asshole. I was in a wheelchair for three months. I couldn't walk on my own for nine."
He got the impression that she wasn't used to cussing. It hadn't sounded natural. As she continued ranting, a crowd of bystanders began to develop, and he knew soon this would become a scene. Normally, by this point, he would have just walked away, but something about the little ray of sunshine made him think it would be bad to turn his back to her. So he dug deeper into his memory. Even if a whole year had passed, though, he still hadn't encountered anyone like her.
One phrase in the girl's monologue caught Fushimi's less-than-attentive ear: "Haruna, Emi." It all came back then.
"Seriously?" He mocked in disbelief. "Tch." That had been three years ago. This was the ninja from the Black Clan who had tried to kill him. He didn't think she had any right to be complaining that he defended himself. There was a two year gap between the time she said it took her to walk unaided and today, in the hospital still bummed up.
"I suppose you've destroyed so many people since then you can't even tell them apart," she derided in pure hatred.
Fushimi deadpanned. "You were wearing a mask."
"Which you went through the trouble of removing. Was that not specifically to remember my face?"
That had been Hayashi's doing with a misplaced concern that their enemy would live. It still bothered him that she wanted to treat the wounds of someone who tried to kill them while they were still in the middle of their war. Of course, he would never let this ninja see his frustration.
With a shrug, he replied, "Didn't see it."
"Liar," the girl muttered.
His response was an obviously artificial laugh. "Ha, like you're an honest person who fights fair!"
"This isn't about our fight!" She shot back. "It's about afterwards when you mercilessly slayed a defenseless girl!"
Fushimi didn't argue that he hadn't slain her at all, or that she had gotten better within a year. He didn't insist that she was far from defenseless. He wasn't the kind who felt obligated to justify his actions as morally correct. Nor did he point out her terrible grammar just for the sake of provoking a fight as he might have with Misaki. Above all, he certainly couldn't care less about the vendetta of a washed-up Black Clansman on crutches.
Without missing a beat, he sneered, "That was our fight!"
Grabbing the front of his jacket in some sort of desperate, resentful frenzy, the girl described, "The Black Clan wasn't ever a family like Homra, taking care of one another, no matter what comes! If you can't perform to par, you're out. I still can't get back!"
Fushimi thought she must not be aware that he was no longer a part of Homra if that was how she intended to make him feel bad. Completely unmoved by her sob story, he responded demeaningly, "Homra never really was a family." After all, hadn't they completely broken up for a time after Suoh, Mikoto's death?
The combative attitude she had shown before was quickly wearing into something hopeless, "I...I've never been anything but a ninja."
"So the reason your leg hasn't healed," Fushimi deduced, cutting her story short, "is because you keep training too hard until you injure it all over again? You should sit and let it heal properly." She tried to protest then, but he prevented her, continuing as if he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, "You do realize we completely devastated your clan that day? There was no organization left. Scepter 4 even convinced your king to renounce her throne because of the damaged state of her Sword of Damocles. What are you trying so hard to go back to?"
Not knowing what to say then, she mumbled incomprehensibly to the floor like he had just shredded the little part of her that still bore the title, "Black Ninja."
Annoyed by her lack of conviction, Fushimi clicked his tongue. "If you'd just stop living in the past, your leg would get better just fine." He found himself rubbing guiltily at a particular scar on his collarbone that also hadn't healed in over three years as a voice accused in the back of his mind, hypocrite.
That irritated him even further, so to avoid the nagging culpability he turned his back on the ex-ninja, his former opponent who used to be a threat, thinking somehow, if he didn't have to deal with her, he could run from his own conscience. It was living in denial, but he would never admit that he knew that to be true. He would never acknowledge that his actions could have lasting consequences on others.
He heard the whoosh of a crutch displacing air as it was swung at his head. Ducking, he faced the ex-ninja who had summoned her black aura in a hospital lobby. So she could still use it, he concluded while she slashed at him again as if the crutch were the staff she fought him with last time. The power that came from him naturally in return was a shimmering blue. He didn't bother to draw his sword. Using that moment of surprise when she realized his color had changed, he ripped the crutch from her grasp and whirled her around with her hand behind her back so that movement was limited.
With a growl in his voice, he questioned, "What made you think—when you couldn't beat me last time—you'd have more success disabled? Here's some advice: the strong grow more powerful; the weak get left behind."
Shoving her away then, he walked off and didn't look back.
See you next Thursday for the release of A Growing World's first chapter The Substitute Special Duty Corps.