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Fated Meetings Part 2

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Part 2



Ichigo stared after Sora carefully as he played around on his tablet while she marched him and Hana up to Jaden’s front door. Akiko was busy at the local Agency headquarters doing some programming work, and she was about to leave for work, as well. It also happened to be the weekend, which meant Sora had no school. And as Akiko had already insisted that leaving Hana and Sora alone together was just asking for trouble, Ichigo felt it necessary to ask a favor and have someone she trusted to look after them a while. With any luck, Jaden wasn’t wrapped up too much in his computer at the moment. He had, after all, already been warned of the kids’ presence.
She knocked on the door quickly, and glanced to the teenage boy. Sora, of course, was a lot more trouble than Hana. It had become very clear very quickly that he had taken after his mother as far as computers went. It didn’t help when she already knew he had suddenly become the slightly exasperated butt of several computer-related experiences over the last week or so. Even though she hadn’t exactly said such yet, she already knew quite certainly that he was at the very least a hacker in the making. How good he was yet was still up for debate, which would be observed in time to come. Either way, he was also probably involved in some computer war with another hacker.
Her sanity was also very much up for debate, as well. She was, after all, leaving a budding hacker with a well experienced one. Then again, it was still probably a lot better than letting Shaun look after the boy, given the fact he was actually a lot worse than Shane in several ways. How that man actually managed to present himself as mature was a mystery—apparently even to Rose. Ichigo still wondered how he ever survived having been a nobleman ages ago, given his knack for finding nothing but trouble at times.
After a moment, the door opened and Garnet stood inside with one hand pressed against her hip, a wrench held almost tightly in it. Sora looked up from his game and watched the woman for a moment. Her bangs were arched some to each side, and were long enough to completely frame her face, but no more than that. The rest of her silver locks were pulled back into a low ponytail. Still, with her green eyes, she suddenly reminded him of an old video game character he sort of liked.
He quickly lowered the tablet and smiled. “Hello, Miss Sephiroth,” he said without much thought.
While Hana laughed, and Garnet raised an eyebrow in vague surprise, Ichigo just sighed. “I called Jaden yesterday evening to let him know I needed someone to keep these two out of trouble,” she explained. “This is Sora and Hana.”
Garnet gave an amused expression. “Out of trouble?” she asked. “Jaden is trouble, just like everyone else. I’m Garnet.”
Sora gave an almost slight bow. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said happily. “Miss Ichigo said we were going to stay with a couple of friends for the day.”
“Well, come on in,” said Garnet. She quickly stepped to the side as the two youngest moved to enter the home, then looked to Ichigo. “You have work in a bit, huh?”
The part American woman gave a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, or I’d come in and give you all a warning. Sora is usually the one getting into trouble, but he and Hana together is so much worse.”
The silver-haired witch glanced to the siblings—Sora of whom was just smiling brightly—and sighed. “Trouble… Well, I can do my best to keep them out of it. I’m surprised you didn’t ask Akira.”
Ichigo’s laugh grew a little and she turned to leave. “Even if all four are at home, there’s still Drake. At least Kite and Shanna haven’t been nicknamed ‘brat’.”
“Point made,” Garnet sighed.
When Ichigo waved and left, she closed the door and turned back to the two. Jaden, of course, had already mentioned Ichigo was saddling them with Akiko’s kids, and had mentioned that Ichigo said they were trouble. Of course she knew he was an obvious choice for anyone wanting to keep a couple of kids out of trouble. He was probably, outside of his computer obsession, one of the most sane people she knew at that point. And yet, that really didn’t say a whole lot given how insane everyone was in the first place. It didn’t help that he had even married her in the first place.
“Jaden is doing Gaia only knows what in his bat-cave,” she started. “Are you hungry?”
Hana glanced to Sora briefly, watching his expression as he watched Garnet. “We’ve already eaten,” she said carefully. “So we’ll be fine until lunch.”
For a long moment, Sora had the urge to swat at Garnet’s bangs just on the principle they were long enough to do so with. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how well she’d take his cat-like quirks. She looked enough like Sephiroth from her hair and eyes to her general expression that he was pretty sure she was the no-nonsense touch-me-not type. He decided not to risk it, especially given that she was holding the wrench. He also hoped that it was solely for working on vehicles and not used for whacking people with if they annoyed her.
With a small sigh, Garnet paraded the two into the living room, where she noticed Shanna was set on the couch watching some silly cartoon. “Well, make yourselves at home.”
At first, Hana sort of just stared at the doll child on the couch, not entirely sure what she was supposed to say. Anyone with magic could tell that the doll was no ordinary doll. She glanced to Sora, who was just as entranced with the girl as she felt. He was probably trying to decipher through his more logical mind just what a living doll was doing there. Hopefully, Ichigo hadn’t accidentally dumped the two of them into the laps of some far less than sane couple.
Eventually, Sora made his way over to the girl while she looked away from the television and waved. He assumed she was waving more at Garnet than him or Hana, although it was possible she was waving to them. This was definitely an interesting turn of events, given this was the last thing he had really expected to ever actually encounter. While it was easy for him to start thinking maybe Garnet was as insane as Sephiroth had been in the games, he reminded himself that there was always more to everything than at first glance. It was entirely possible that she and Jaden had been asked to take care of her by someone else.
He knelt down in front of her and smiled some. “Hello,” he said, almost softly.
Shanna smiled, although it seemed a lot brighter in her mind. The spell that had been used and updated over time could only allow the porcelain to stretch so much. “Hi!” she chirped. “I like your hair thingies.”
Sora pointed to the barrettes and bow in his hair for confirmation even though it wasn’t necessary, and watched the girl nod a bit. “Thanks.”
“I’m Shanna,” she introduced, turning some more and completely ignoring the characters on the TV. “Are you a kitty?”
For a moment, Sora had to remember the cat collar and bell he always wore. Sometimes it was easy to forget he had it on. “No, but my sister always calls me a cat,” he explained happily. He watched as the young witch walked over to the two of them. “I’m Sora Kurotsuki. This is my older sister, Hana.”
“Hmm.” Hana took a close, curious look at the child. She almost asked why the girl was a doll in the first place, but thought better of it. Something told her it was a sore subject for someone in the house. “You have a lovely dress,” she said instead.
“One of my friends made it for her.”
The two siblings glanced behind them to see a red-head watching from the entrance of the dining room.
Kite strode in and picked the girl up carefully. “I showed Jason a few designs that I found online, and he just started working without being asked.”
“Kite,” Hana said almost in surprise.
The young man looked at the woman who had been setting up for starting college come the next semester. “Hey.”
“I’m going to be right back,” Garnet called over. “I probably need to drag the last part of the family out of his bat-cave.”
The half sprite looked up to watch his mom leave their line of sight and looked back to the others. “So what are you two here for?”
“Apparently, Mom told Miss Ichigo we’re not to be trusted home alone,” Hana explained casually. “Not together, at least.”
Sora stood up quickly with a bright smile. “Well, I’m Sora,” he introduced. “It’s nice to meet you! Hana mentioned you once.”
The red-head glanced back to the witch watching him. “Oh, we were just waiting for the bus,” he said.
“She said you were going to be performing in some show downtown,” the younger male quickly explained.
Kite gave a very smug smile. “I am,” he confirmed. “We’re performing Mary Poppins on Friday. Are you coming?”
For a moment, Sora just looked at the man before nodding fervently. “I’ve been a little bored lately,” he quickly said. “And Mom said we needed to get out of the house some.”
“Kite’s a great actor!” Shanna cheered. “Jaden and Garnet are going to take me to see the show!” She gave a small hum. “I like watching him on stage.”
The Japanese half-breed just nodded—dealing with the doll child seemed to actually be very easy. “I’m sure he is,” he decided to praise. It helped that he could see flair about the other man that just screamed performer. There was a certain cat-like grace to his movements that Sora could recognize just about anywhere.
“I can’t go to all his shows, though,” Shanna continued. “He said I’m not old enough yet.”
Kite glanced away almost awkwardly. “It’s… complicated,” he supplied before either of the others could ask. “She’s been like this for almost fifty years, but she still has the mind of a five-year-old. I’d like to find a way to reverse the spell that did this.”
It was silent for a long moment, and Sora watched Kite carefully and almost calculatedly. There seemed to be something the other wasn’t saying about the entire situation, but Sora had some trouble putting his finger on what it was exactly. If he hadn’t been just told how long Shanna had been a doll, he would have said Kite had something to do with it. Still, Kite’s expression said he was also more than just one of three people taking care of her while she was in that form. Perhaps he’d become some kind of father-figure to the girl, even though he didn’t look that old in the first place.
There was another possibility Sora could think of, but he would probably have sounded crazy if he mentioned it seriously—sometimes even he thought he was crazy to really consider it. Unless Kite brought it up on his own, Sora would keep his speculation to himself. Even if he had been shunned for being a half-breed in the past, he didn’t feel like being deemed crazy here just because he brought up the possibility of reincarnation. Rebirth wasn’t always congruent with various beliefs, and he wasn’t about to risk some argument over it. And to top it off, Kite looked like mentioning it would only be worse for him in the end. Sora was curious, but not curious enough to find out what Kite might do if he asked too many questions. Especially given his resemblance to another Final Fantasy VII character Sora really liked.
When it was apparent the others weren’t sure what to say, exactly, Kite spoke again. “I know it won’t be easy, but I’d like to try.” He glanced at Shanna with almost a melancholic expression, and ran his fingers through her curly hair. He wouldn’t say it, but he was actually afraid there wasn’t a way to do that. “I’d like to watch her grow up.”
Shanna leaned into Kite and closed her eyes. “I like being a doll, but it would be a lot of fun to be like other kids, too.”
Hana felt a chill run down her spine. Something about the situation just gave her the absolute creeps. She reached out a hand to feel the girl’s hair, but stopped short when Kite swatted her hand away with a glare. There was clearly something going on behind the scenes that she didn’t know about. It was almost as if Kite and Shanna were very well connected to each other. Part of her wanted to confirm that they were.
“I swore to take care of her, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Kite said almost hastily. There was a bit of fire to his voice. “So I don’t let too many people touch her.”
There was a small laugh from behind the two others. “There’s a difference between taking care of her, and being overprotective.”
Hana looked behind her to see the new arrival, and was thrown for a slight loop when she saw him. The man looked more like a woman than a man. All the same, she clamped down on her surprise very quickly so she didn’t give him the wrong impression. She really wasn’t of the mood to explain her own biological oddities, regardless of how she identified herself. Being female on the outside, yet having the internal reproductive organs of a male wasn’t exactly what she considered a good start for conversations. All it ever really seemed to do was create a very awkward situation.
“You must be Mister Jaden,” she said, affecting an almost casual tone.
For a moment, Jaden wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. He’d heard from Akiko that the two were respectful enough to use ‘Miss’ and ‘Mister’, but he suddenly felt like an old man. Part of him happily acknowledged the show of respect, but the rest of him planned to insist they just call him Jaden. He glanced to Sora, who gave a small bow of respect, himself. Oh, the irony—if only the boy knew what Jaden had been doing lately. It looked like it was going to turn out to be an interesting day. He would have to thank Ichigo later for this.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” Sora said happily.
“Please don’t be so formal,” Jaden said almost awkwardly. “It’s nice to see kids being so respectful, but it’s almost odd for me.”
Garnet snorted. “Now, if he starts going on about honor, you can simply call him Angeal.”
At first, Jaden only blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, honor is important,” he quickly put out.
Kite suddenly laughed and shook his head. “We run on references around here. Mostly of the Final Fantasy VII variety.”
“That’s a pretty old game,” Sora said casually. “But Mom still likes it. And it is fun.”
“It’s a classic,” Garnet quickly put in. “If you want, I can show you my collection before I go back to the garage.”
Sora gave a small shrug. “I kind of prefer computers, actually.”
The silver-haired witch gave an inward groan. Of course she’d get saddled with a kid who adored computers—Ichigo probably had that in mind and asked Jaden to look after the two because of that. Suddenly, she was very grateful the shape-shifter hadn’t asked Shaun instead, even if this entire thing still managed to lead to some form of insanity. Asking Shaun to look after a kid with a penchant for computers was just asking for the birth of another hacker.
“Well, that’s right up Jaden’s alley. I can’t get him away from his at times.”
Jaden had a playful smile now, and crossed his arms. “If you ever have a problem with something, I can always help.”
“Thanks,” Sora nodded. “But I can usually scratch my way out of computer problems on my own.”
The nature sprite just nodded along with the boy. “Well, I have met your mom, and she has mentioned you taking after her with them.”
Hana rolled her eyes a bit and stepped over to look at Kite and Shanna again while the two computer nerds began chattering on and Garnet headed, presumably, to the garage. “He’s only fourteen, and he’s still managed to be amazing with computers,” she sighed.
“Well, apparently Papa started playing with them when he was eleven or twelve,” Kite laughed. “He and Mama are both pretty young. A lot of my friends have pretty young parents.”
For a moment, Hana just inclined her head a bit. “Mom said she was born before World War I.” She quickly sat herself on the couch near where Shanna had been. “Well, I’m adopted,” she quickly explained. “Dad took me from my birthmother because of something, and then he met Mom.” She sighed a little. “I miss him. I don’t remember too much, though. He was in an accident before Sora was born.”
Kite had an odd look in his eyes, but Hana couldn’t call it pity or anything like that. “Shanna’s papa died about forty years ago,” he said. “Well, he did go insane, but he still took good care of her.” He glanced to Shanna, who seemed rather sad now. “Some men found her and she made it clear she didn’t want to be released.”
The small girl went to say something, but remembered Kite telling her that she couldn’t just tell everyone that she’d wanted to find her dad again. It was explained that a lot of people were actually still quite skeptical on the idea of reincarnation, even if it had become a clear fact of life for some and wasn’t outright denounced by others. She also knew it would cause a lot of problems if she tried explaining why she was with Kite now instead of still trying to find her dad. Sure, there were several people who knew already what their relationship was, but they were also people who had been reborn and knew they were.
“They asked Kite to take care of me,” she said instead. “I like living here.”
Hana smiled a bit. “Well, that’s nice.”
Jaden glanced up from his conversation with Sora and smiled at the three. “He’s good with children, so we just let him look after her without question.”
“Really?” Sora asked, more curiously than much else. If his speculation from what he’d overheard was right, Kite almost seemed like an odd choice at first. Then again, he did also seem quite responsible, as well.
Jaden nodded a bit. “He can be pretty temperamental, but he has amazing parental instincts.”
The half-breed in question just gave a small smile. “I just like being around kids.”
“Yeah, kids are nice,” said Sora. He glanced back to the tablet and started playing around on it again.
As Sora’s attention swiftly diverted back to his game, Hana gave a small snicker. “He has the attention span of a cat,” she explained. She leaned over some to watch the boy play against the computer, and finally finish the game. He had a satisfied smile—he won.
“What are you playing?” Shanna attempted to lean over to see the screen.
With a few blinks, Sora looked back at the doll child. “I’m playing Go. It’s a challenging game, but that’s why I like it.”
“I saw Aster playing it with Ichigo once,” said Kite. “I was hanging out with Jason for a while, and the game looked interesting.”
“Aster?” Sora quickly questioned.
“A friend,” said Jaden. “She likes board games of all kinds. She claims to haunt gaming sites to challenge others.”
Sora thought for a few seconds. “Maybe I’ve played against her, then.”
“I’m not sure what she goes by, though. And I think she still prefers chess most of the time, anyway.” Jaden took a seat in one of the cozy-looking chairs and smirked. “I’m not that great at board games, but I do like them. Do you mind if we play a round?”
Sora let out a wide grin and sat down near the other man. He cleared the board on his tablet and handed it to the sprite. “You can go first.”
Jaden carefully took the electronic and looked at the board. There were a lot of spots for him to choose from, and he really wasn’t sure where to start in the first place. The traditional Go board was nineteen by nineteen spaces, which made for a long game. He had been chatting with a certain Diablo earlier, and trying to find out what the strange man was going to do next for the computer war they were in. Still, he also knew that trying to get back up to his office to continue that conversation would only lead Sora to start thinking. Jaden wasn’t entirely sure yet whether he wanted the boy to know part of who was messing with him, or why. Gwen hadn’t said he couldn’t tell the boy, but the war hadn’t been going on for too long yet, and Jaden had figured to get at least another week in before coming out and saying something.
After he made a move, he handed the tablet back to Sora and waited as he made a move. This went on for several minutes, and the others still in the room gathered around to watch. Jaden eventually moved down from the chair so they could simply leave the tablet on the floor and play that way. It would also make it a lot easier for Kite, Shanna, and Hana to watch the game.
“You’re actually not that bad,” Sora commented eventually. “Still…” He finished the game and smirked as Jaden decided to go along with it, as well. “I’m much better.”
At first, Jaden just pinched the corner of his lips with his teeth and gave a small frown. “Well, I did say I wasn’t that great…”
Sora cleared the board and looked up at Jaden. “Another game?”
“Sure.”
Jaden watched as the boy started a new game, and carefully made the first move. He had to admit that the game was pretty fun, and he’d probably play it again with Sora happily. Still, he would probably prefer the games they already played with each other half-anonymously. Board games were Aster’s forte, while he usually stuck with his computers more often than not. He did a lot better when set in front of a keyboard and screen, just as everyone he knew had their own areas of expertise. They shared some things and used them for competitions, but otherwise left each other to their own devices.
After several moves, it was Jaden’s turn again, and he pressed on a spot on the board. Unfortunately, nothing happened, and he frowned some at the thing’s general unresponsiveness. Of course he knew technology still had a bad habit of glitching at the worst of times, but was also under the impression Akiko never bought anything but the best for her family. And the best of technology had significantly less issues to deal with than all the rest. Jaden knew that from first-hand experience. If he had to choose—and he generally did—he was bane to go very cheap on any sort of computer. Some could even claim he spoiled his family on technology at times.
Sora picked up the tablet with a small noise that resembled a cat’s growl more than much else. He did not appreciate his games being interrupted for much of anything, and it often left him rather testy. Before he could do anything to potentially fix the problem, the screen minimized itself and brought up several flashy animations that cycled through for several agonizingly long moments. He was vaguely aware that the others moved to see what was going on, but ignored the audience in lieu of trying to stop the mess.
Eventually, the animations did stop. However, a small window opened in the middle of the screen. Sora’s face was now quite ashen. “Oh, lovely.” His voice was acidic—more so than ever expected from the cheerful boy. Though given the interesting and quite tasteless comic-styled image, he had every right to be so irritated.
Kite suddenly had his hand over Shanna’s eyes, fairly certain this wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted a five-year-old exposed to at the moment. “My friend, the fates are cruel…”
Jaden was torn between trying to gouge his eyes out from the display and laughing at Sora’s quite priceless expression. The only thing that really stopped him from doing the latter was the fact that if he did laugh, Sora would probably catch on real quickly to his own involvement in the computer war. Of course, he had absolutely no involvement in this particular display, given that he hadn’t had anything planned yet again the boy. But that wasn’t going to mean too much in a few moments if he wasn’t careful.
“Oh, that’s wrong,” Hana commented. She was about as pale as Sora was now.
For a moment, Sora was halfway to smashing the device, but didn’t. He took a deep, long breath to calm himself down and pulled out his cell phone. If all else failed, at least he had that, and could get through the tablet’s back door with it. Right now, he wasn’t entirely concerned about the others finding out he was a hacker. He was much, much more preoccupied with just getting the rather tacky image off his screen so he could resume his game of Go with Jaden. Certainly, he could have asked the man to deal with it. But Sora didn’t much care to let someone he didn’t know—let alone entirely trust—mess with one of his personal belongings.
The others watched in silence as the little genius went through a mind-numbing mass of coding over the span of the next several minutes. Kite had to admit that it was almost fascinating. Though he was a lot more fascinated by how someone could just sit there and go through it all without going entirely insane from it. Sure, he’d seen Jaden get frustrated with codes at times, but the man always never seemed to lose any shreds of sanity from it. Clearly, Sora had been made from the same cloth, if his only irritated expression was anything to go by.
After several minutes, Sora eventually got the screen of the tablet back to normal. He sighed in relief and got out of what he was into on his phone. Granted that he was still annoyed over the fact he just had to show his lesser known skills to two people he didn’t know, but at least it was done now. Hopefully, there would be no more incidents as such while he and Hana were there. At home was one thing, because his family was fully aware—Ichigo notwithstanding—of his other hobbies.
God help Phantom if he did anything else within the next few hours, because the war was only going to escalate. While he wouldn’t say it, the image had also brought up some images from dreams he could have done without ever seeing. That was reason enough to retaliate.
The back of Jaden’s mind was resolved to have a nice chat with Nathan later that day, because as funny as Sora’s reaction was, the image had been rather mind-scarring. “That… was interesting…”
“He’s been having a few computer issues lately,” Hana explained as Kite uncovered Shanna’s eyes. She still looked a bit pale. “We’re… not really sure why.”
Sora still wanted to snap, but kept that feeling from controlling him. He would lash out at the other hacker later, in a vaguely similar fashion. “Someone wants to mess with me, apparently.”
Jaden thought for a brief moment. As controlled as the boy was at the moment, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to alert him to the fact that he was the Thorn who had been helping to mess with him. That was simply asking for a lot more trouble than Jaden really wanted to deal with. Then again, given the stunt Nathan had just pulled, he could always choose to swap sides and exact a little of his own revenge on the shape-shifter. It probably wasn’t the most honorable thing to do, but he felt it would be justified with what had just happened.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Kite.
The half vampire just shrugged some.
There was a moment of silence before Kite spoke again. “Well, you could always retaliate. It looks like you’re really good at coding.”
Sora paused at first. “Well, I guess I could,” he tried to affect being almost awkward.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Jaden admitted. “I’m half inclined to do something, myself.”
“Well…” Sora rubbed the back of his neck almost uncomfortably and glanced to Hana.
At first, she just shrugged. Perhaps getting a little help from a much more experienced computer nerd would be helpful, even if he wasn’t a hacker. “Do what you want, but be careful.”
Kite watched the other boy intently. “If you want to fight a hacker, use a hacker,” he eventually put out. He suddenly had a very playful smirk on his face. “Unless you don’t think you can.”
Hana opened her mouth to warn the half sprite about making such a comment to her brother. She knew for a fact that anything that sounded like a challenge was taken as such. Unfortunately, Sora spoke first.
“Are you saying I can’t hack?” the Japanese boy challenged. There was a new spark in his deep brown eyes.
“Oh, no,” Kite chuckled. “But do you think you can or not?”
Initially, Jaden bit his lip to keep from laughing, but eventually gave up trying to stop after his son’s challenge. When he caught Sora’s slightly miffed gaze, he smirked some and glanced to the side. Apparently, the jig was up far sooner than he’d anticipated. That was alright, he supposed, because if nothing else, he was going to call a truce and help come up with something with the boy to pay Nathan back. Revenge truly was sweet at times.
“If you’re planning to retaliate, then maybe you wouldn’t mind me helping some?” he asked.
Sora suddenly gave a sly smile as he put two and two together. “Truce?”
“Oh, Gaia, Ichigo dumped a little hacker on us.”
Jaden glanced to see his wife standing in the doorway, looking less than pleased at the moment. “Someone was bright enough to send something we could have gone several millennia without seeing,” he said quickly.
The witch gave a small groan. “Do I even want to know what you saw?”
“Too tasteless for words,” Sora rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to bet someone decided to get Nathan drunk,” Kite sighed.
“Nathan acts really weird when he’s drunk,” Shanna put in helpfully.
It didn’t take Sora even a second to get the gist. “He’s going to pay for this one.”
“If your mother finds out about—“
“Miss Garnet?” Sora interrupted.
“Just Garnet,” the witch said first. “What?”
“Mom is a hacker.”
Garnet stood there and stared at the boy in disbelief for several long, silent moments. All of a sudden, her mind clicked and informed her that this was the boy Gwen had asked Jaden to teach a small lesson to. It wasn’t as if Jaden had told her exactly who he was dealing with in the first place. All he had really said about the situation was there was a student who had been irritating the half fairy during class. Part of Garnet knew Gwen was only irritated so much because she was a little too high-strung at times. The rest of her knew that the person who had been causing trouble probably did need a lesson about such. She only grudgingly accepted it, and didn’t even bother asking for details.
Now she had them still without wanting them.
The air was too tense, and Hana quickly decided something needed said. “Well, if it helps, I’m not a hacker.”
“Does Ichigo know?” Garnet had glanced to Hana, but quickly turned her attention back to Sora.
The boy shrugged some. “Well, she knows Mom is a hacker, but they’ve been friends for a long time. But we haven’t said anything to each other about it. So if she knows, she’s not saying.”
“She probably does,” said Jaden. When Sora looked at him again, he continued. “When she brought it up, she told me she knew because she had a friend who was a hacker.”
Sora nodded once. “So who is Nathan?”
“Oh, he’s one of the people who asked me to take care of Shanna,” Kite quickly explained. “He’s also pretty good friends with Gwen. She probably asked him to do something. I know she was complaining about some joker interrupting class.”
At that, the only thing that happened was everyone glancing towards the cat collar-wearing boy. Hana was the first to speak. “That’s what started this whole mess?”
Sora blushed some. “Well, some of my teachers are irritating,” he quickly explained. “I thought simply to irritate them for a while as retribution.”
Jaden couldn’t help but snort a little. “If they’re irritating, I’m surprised she hasn’t done anything to mess with them.”
“She probably has,” Kite corrected with a wry grin. “Just not during class.”
The silver-haired witch gave a sigh as she pulled out her phone to call Jake and see what he knew about the entire thing. She could always text him, but then she might have to wait a while for him to respond. And at the moment, this seemed like a pretty important thing to call about. Even though part of her told her she could simply let Sora deal with the entire thing on his own, she felt it necessary to hopefully nip this issue in the bud before things got worse. With any luck, it would also mean an end to the war taking place all over the town. Though she also knew there was a chance it would keep going just for the joy of them all messing with each other.
“We’ve been called nothing but trouble,” Kite went on. “But if you look at our parents, you won’t be too surprised.”
“We’ll probably fit right in,” said Sora. Part of him wasn’t exactly sure how close he and Hana would actually become to these people, but if he’d already known Jaden and Nathan online, then maybe they’d be closer than he first really expected. “Mom says we’re nothing but trouble.”
Hana just snickered at first. “And by ‘we’, she mostly means you,” the young woman teased. She watched her brother give a goofy grin.
Once he stopped himself from laughing, Jaden spoke up again. “This town is far from normal. A lot of things happen, and there are a lot of strange people. We’re just a small part of the insanity. There are others around who are crazier than us.”
A large smirk formed on Hana’s face—it was too easy to get close to these people—and she poked one of the buns of the sprite’s hair. “Is that so, Sailor Moon?”
Jaden blushed some as Kite fought not to laugh. His hair was an auburn color, but he did look suspiciously like the old anime character all the same. He hoped that when they inevitably met his sister, she wouldn’t tell them about his old Sailor Moon impressions. “You clearly haven’t met Shane yet.”
“The entire Silvers family is crazy,” said Kite. “Shaun is probably the most immature of all, though.”
“Shaun?” the siblings asked in unison.
Suddenly, Jaden had a small smirk. “But you and Akiko might know him better as Joker.”
Sora’s eyes lit up. “Joker is here? Would you please introduce me to him?”
“Sure,” Jaden quickly responded. “I could also introduce you to Patience’s daughter. Jocelyn moved here for college. She isn’t as interested in computers, though.”
The smile on Kite’s face became a little smaller now. “She’s a pretty lucky woman,” he said almost thoughtlessly. When Sora looked back to him with a raised eyebrow, he had to hide a small blush. “Oh, well, she’s dating Jason. He’s really cool.”
It didn’t take long for Sora to get the gist of the situation. “And you like him,” he said.
The young stage performer nodded a little. “Well, both he and Jeanne are very attractive. They’re twins, though, so I’m not surprised.”
“Jeanne with blue hair?” Sora asked.
Jaden just smirked. “Yeah, the entire pregnancy was magical,” he said. “Cari and Aster are technically still virgins. I wouldn’t suggest any virgin mother jokes. It didn’t take long for Cari to get tired of them.”
It took Sora about a minute to clamp down on his thoughts before they could start roaming. Sure, he was dealing with typical male hormones, but it didn’t mean he was going to let his mind be infested with such images. He had other things to deal with, and that was very unimportant by comparison. Not only did he have his own odd dreams, but he was also worried about how Hana was doing lately. She hadn’t said anything about it, but he knew her own nights were spent awake to the point he thought she would have started passing out during the day.
Of course, Sora was also having issues sleeping, as well. It didn’t seem to be as bad as Hana’s issues, and he already didn’t actually need as much sleep as her. Still, he was also sleeping significantly less than before. Neither Akiko nor Hana know about it, given his wonderful ability to fake sleep, but it didn’t change a lot. While it wasn’t necessarily his dreams that kept him awake at all hours of the night, it didn’t help. His dreams over the last five months had been so odd and gave him the impression of scenes from another life, like far-off memories. It was threatening to start driving him crazy by this point, despite the fact that a lot of them were actually good dreams.
“Wait, if their parents are both women, then where did Jason get his Y chromosome?” asked Sora.
“Where did Jason get what?” Garnet ended the call and looked at the boy with a raised eyebrow.
“His Y chromosome,” Sora repeated. “His parents are both women, right? So they couldn’t have passed that to him.”
Jaden felt very uncomfortable very quickly, while Garnet and Hana stared, and his son snorted all of a sudden. Shanna didn’t really have a reaction to speak of, probably in part due to her innocence. “Probably magic,” he said quickly. “Probably also a part of why his hair is blue. I did say it was a magical pregnancy.” That, and the thought of Shaun somehow using one of his own Y chromosomes was just mind-scarring. It was probably the reason no one had ever questioned it until now.
Sora thought about that for a moment. “It had to come from somewhere,” he finally said. “We could always ask whoever used the spell if we can find them, right? Was it Miss Aster or Miss Cari?”
No one could speak at first. “I heard it was Shaun,” Kite eventually got out. “I’m not even sure how he got his hands on a fairy’s spell book.”
At that, Sora’s mind got ahead of the rest of him, and he only barely remembered that a girl with the mind of a five-year-old was with them to keep him from expressing his next thought. “We could always ask him how it happened.”
“I don’t get it,” Shanna said, a vaguely confused look on her face.
“Don’t worry about it,” Garnet eventually got out. “I’m not even sure I want to know.”
“I’m going to ask,” Sora declared. He watched as most of the others stared at him. “What is it?”
Kite just laughed some eventually. “There’s probably a reason no one has asked.”
Garnet just sighed. “You can worry about it another time. For now, I think we deal with whatever Gwen’s problem with you is.”
“Thanks, but I can deal with that on my own,” Sora said quickly. He didn’t want to push his problem onto others, especially given he really didn’t know the people that well.
The witch just shot him an unamused look. “You’re coming with me to Jake’s shop, and that’s final. Now that he knows who has his daughter so worked up, he wants to meet you.”
Sora paled noticeably. “I can talk to Gwen on Monday,” he insisted almost too quickly. “I don’t—“
At first, Jaden just snorted. The interrupted Sora stared back at him. “The only reason you need to fear Jake is for actually threatening his family, and then you really only need to worry about aliens. He’s more of a sci-fi nerd and dork than anything else. Usually, several of the others we know are worth a lot more concern.”
The half vampire only relaxed some. “So he won’t actually do anything for upsetting her?”
“Gwen can be too high-strung,” Kite decided to explain. “So no, he won’t be too upset over it.”
Garnet had to wipe the amused smirk from her face. “He wants you and Gwen to resolve your issues with each other.” When Sora opened his mouth again, she cut him off. “Gwen has a problem with you, and we need her in a place where she has to resolve it. And given your reaction earlier, you have a problem, as well. I can’t guarantee Kyle will be around her at school when you two talk.”
“Hey, if you go talk with Jake and Gwen, I’ll make sure to introduce you to Shaun right afterwards.” Jaden was fully aware he was using a bit of bribery, but if it got the job done, then he would live with it. As it was, he also wanted to make sure Gwen was aware of what had just happened.
The offer was officially dangled in front of Sora’s face, and he couldn’t resist pouncing. He had to meet Shaun, given who Joker was reputed to be in the first place. “Alright,” he consented.
For a long moment, Garnet debated her common sense in letting Jaden officially introduce the boy to Shaun, but decided to leave it be. Eventually, they would figure each other out in the end, just like Shaun and Jaden had years ago. Keeping the boy in the dark would probably only irritate him, and that would lead to God only knew what. And she really didn’t feel like taking chances with an irritable budding hacker, no matter how respectful he was. A vexed hacker of any kind was not the kind of opponent she wanted, because it only meant asking Jaden to retaliate for her, given that computer problems were the thing of nightmares for her. And, of course, that would only encourage him to keep playing his games.
“Good,” said Garnet. Oh, she was going to be in for such a long day. She would have to remember to complain to Ichigo later.

To Be Continued

This particular story in the Interlocked Lives world is no doubt the longest I've ever written. In truth, I've had this thing sitting on my flashdrive for at least half a year. It's just that this story is so... big that it ended up as long as it did.

By the way, yes, Kite is doll-child Shanna's daddy. No, he's not happy about the extremes he went to in trying to make her happy. But he loves her to the ends of the universe, and knows not to give her whatever she wants this time. And as for Hana, being what she is is part of what makes her so interesting. But where it's interesting is that she's literally always been this way (hint hint).

:rose::skull: Cari/Rose :blackrose::heart:
© 2015 - 2024 wanderingsilverrose
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