[Day: Friday, March 26th. Time: 11:00 p.m.] [Weather: Rainy] [Taki is in her room. It's bedtime! z.z] [Mini start] ( Hint: Go to sleep :P ) * Taki slides open the door to her room and pauses to yawn before stepping in. Then she closes the door and take a few steps to her bed and flops onto. * Taki is currently wearing a set of blue striped PJs and has her hair up in a loose bun to lessen the chances of it stangling her in her sleep. [Taki's hair silently curses.] * Taki rubs her eyes and rolls in place a few times in a futile attemt to get under her blankets before givving up and sitting up so she use her hands. Blanket check, alarm clock check, sleep chee *yawn* [Taki suddenly finds herself in a room, apparently sitting on a table.] * Taki blinks and looks around the room and to see if there's anything else on the table, "Wha?" [Taki sees a really large apple on her left, an orange behind her, and a banana on her right.] (Gah, Taki realy is an eggplant, and is about to get made into fruit salad! ;_;) Oohkay... (She's part of a still life!) [Then for whatever reason, Taki is no longer on the table. She's in a playground.] * Taki blinks again and shakes her head, "But I didn't..." * Taki looks around the playground for anything she might recognize. [Whatever the deal with the fruit was, it's not important now. Instead, Taki and her friend Kochiyo feel like they want to go on the swings. But there's only two of them, and a dark haired girl is on one. She's a bit younger than Taki, maybe seven or eight years old. Which means she's too small to do anything when Taki shoves her off.] [The girl lands on her face and turns around, on the verge of tears. But Taki and her friend get on the swings, so it's ok!] * Taki swings on her swing, and grins, because it's hers now, and not anybody elses. [A boy runs over. "Hey! That wasn't nice! I'm gonna tell on you!" Taki keeps swinging, because the boy is also smaller than she is. "Serves her right! I'm better than her!"] [The boy points a finger at her. "You're just jealous 'cause Saki's granpa an' your granpa fought with swords, and your granpa died! My mommy told me so!"] [Taki stops swinging. That made her mad. She gets off and yells back. "It wasn't fair! He cheated!"] ["Did not!"] ["Did too!"] [Taki throws a rock at him. "Did not!"] [The boy almost gets hit, but he dodges. He runs away! Taki considers following, but instead picks up another rock and throws it at the girl. "He cheated! Say it!" Kochiyo hesitates, "Yoshiko, we could get in trouble."] (I thought she was arguing with a boy?) [The rock hits the girl, and she starts to cry. "Say it! He cheated!"] ( She was until he ran away :P ) (Hehe.) (Oh dear.) [Taki throws more and more rocks, until an adult comes over. "Hey! Stop that this instant!"] [Some time later, Taki is looking at a picture over a fireplace. It's a portrait of a proud samurai, riding a horse. She turns to the older woman beside her. "Mama, grandpa was a good sam'rai, wasn't he?"] [The woman looks down and smiles. "Of course, dear. He was one of the last, but he always held onto his beliefs. He made us so proud."] ["But didn't he die?"] [The woman looks sad. "Yes. I was no older than you when he did. He fought very bravely."] ["But he died."] [The woman shakes her head. "My dear... for the samurai, what they did or didn't do isn't as important as why they tried it. Do you understand? Your grandfather felt he had to fight that duel. For him it was the right thing to do, even though he knew he might die."] [The woman leaves the room. Taki is left standing there, staring at the portrait. "But he died. It's not fair."] [Suddenly, Taki is in the front of the house. Her daddy has just had an argument with another man. She watched as her father tried to appease the man by smiling and bowing a lot, even though the man was very rude and probably wrong about whatever he was talking about, too.] [Taki walks up to her father. "Daddy, that man was being rude! Why didn't you do something?" "Dear, he's daddy's boss. Daddy would lose his job." "Grandpa never would have let that man talk to him like that." "Yoshiko... it's been many years since your grandfather was alive. They way he lived then is very different from how things are now. And we need money, or there won't be good food for you to eat. You wouldn't like that, would you?"] ["No! It's not fair!"] [Taki walks into the kitchen, those words still ringing in her head. Her father is there, sitting at the table, his face melancholy, as it had been for the past several days. Her mother comes over and pats him on the back. "Don't worry, dear. You'll find work again, soon."] [But he never would find work again. Years flashed through Taki's mind as her father was turned away again and again. Nobody would hire him. He got a letter; he tried to hide it, but Taki saw it: someone said he would lose his home (ancestral, which her grandfather had lived in for years) if he didn't pay the money he owed soon.] [Some time later, Taki's father pays off all his debts! He takes her and her mother out to eat a big, expensive meal that night. Taki is so happy that she barely notices her mother ask how he managed to get so much money in such a short time.] (...I've been sold to the mob ;_)) ) [She walks into a room in her house; her mother is sobbing. "Why are you crying, mom?" "Your father... your father!" To her horror, Taki realizes her dad is dead. They found his body in the port; he was murdered.] * Taki takes a step backwords and tears start to form in her eyes, she manages to keep from throwing herself at her mother, but walks over to her quickly and huddles against her, "Why?...He...Who?" [Time passes. Taki is heading home from school when she hears the neighbors gossiping. "Isn't that the Matsudaira child?" "Yes. I think so. Did you hear about her father?" "Yes... the poor thing." "Don't feel so bad; her father was a dirty criminal." "Really?" "Yes. He did a lot of horrible things." "And to think, the Matsudairas used to be great samurai..."] [Taki turns angrily at them. "Shut up! You don't know what happened! My grandpa WAS a great samurai."] [The neighbors are taken aback; they didn't think Taki could hear them. But nevertheless... "Maybe once, but he kept holding onto the samurai tradition when their time had passed. Then he went and got himself killed. And now your father followed in his footsteps."] [Taki clenches her fists. She's tempted to hurt them, but instead runs away, crying. "It's not fair!" She cries. "It's just not fair!"] [It's raining. Taki is walking through the rain. She's got no umbrella; she's just staring at the ground. "It's not fair," she mutters. In her mind, the ridicule she's recieved the past few weeks has been replaying itself over and over.] [Taki comes across Saki: She's older now, about twelve, walking home under her umbrella. Taki feels a burning hatred rising through her.] * Taki glares at the descendant of the cause of all her misery, "You! You and your grandfather! It's all your fault!" [Saki looks bewildered. Taki rushes at her and knocks her over, "My grandfather was a great samurai!" She gets on top of Saki as strikes at her. "Yours was a nobody!"] [Taki strikes and strikes. Saki doesn't do anything but cry (maybe because Taki isn't giving her a chance), but that just makes Taki angrier. She's wrong, and she won't even apologize! Taki finds a rock, and starts beating on Saki with that instead.] [Taki realizes she could kill the girl. In fact, she's trying to. If only her grandfather had won instead, things would have been different.] [And then Taki is suddenly in a lot of pain. Her hands go to her eye. Through her other eye, she sees Saki floating off the ground, glowing with a bluish energy. She screams.] [Somehow, Taki gets away. A few days later, the police are at her home. Taki watches through her one good eye as her mother accuses Saki of having done this to her. Taki gives her own testimony, but the police don't seem to believe her for some reason. They say the story sounds too outrageous. Still, they promise, they'll look into it.] [Taki watches them leave, then mutters, "It's not fair."] [Then she wakes up!] [Mini End!]