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Post by The Wonder Fox on Oct 22, 2006 22:47:39 GMT -5
"And that, students, is the story of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea..."
The bell rang a second later to signify the end of class. Amidst the cluttering sounds of shuffling papers and book bags, a pleasant baritone gave a reminder to read a handful of psalms for homework. A young man of only twenty-four stood at the front of the class, dressed in a long flowing black coat. He was erasing the wispy chalk lines on the surface of the blackboard with a slight smile.
In the middle of his task, however, he set the eraser down and turned to look at one of the students.
"Ando-kun, I'd like you to stay afterwards, if you would..."
In one hand, the man held onto a small Bible, his reading glasses having been set down on his desk.
He was a relatively normal-looking man, with his smooth features, small wrinkles at the corners at his eyes, which were a striking red-brownish color. His hair was a deep brown in color, almost black in dim light.
He still had his ears. Well, of course, he was a priest after all...
Then again, there was something rather unholy in those maroon eyes of his.
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Post by Ed-chan on Oct 23, 2006 18:13:36 GMT -5
"Bye, Makoto. We'll see you after class, 'kay?" The brownhaired and freckled girl stood from her seat, adjusting the strap of her bookbag. The youth sitting next to her, bewildered one might add, noticed her lips mouthing a pair of words that were oddly similar to "good luck".
Oh, crap.
What did he do? He couldn't have been in some sort of trouble now!
The boy Makoto stood, in an instant revealing the tall, lithe frame he owned, yet was embarrassed by. He was one of the tallest kids in the sixth grade at about 5'8, tall for his age and still growing.
He swallowed, the saliva sliding uneasily down his throat, light blue eyes wide with hidden anxieties. Speechlessly, he gathered his things into his bag, most of it just being a messy stack of notes that were shoved into the blue, denim material to never be found again. He needed to save as much time as possible. Things didn't feel right.
He gave another soft gulp as his eyes landed upon his teacher. Even now, the sky blue hairs upon his head were standing on end, the white strands upon the tips wiry and stiff, even as they remained tied back into what would have been a normal ponytail.
Okay. So he had to get this over with.
His ears twitched in response to his own scattered thoughts.
Slowly, cautiously, he proceeded over to the elder man, standing timidly by his desk, eyes cast down at the floor as if he was afraid to even glance up for only a few moments.
"Yes, Father...?"
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Oct 24, 2006 17:09:07 GMT -5
He hadn't turned his attention to the boy, that priest, as he focused more on writing down the next day's lesson plan, a small white paper with wispy handwriting clenched in his hand. From the paper to the chalkboard, that's where he kept his eyes.
It was somewhat of a good thing; his eyes were positively eerie.
Then again, students got in the most trouble when Father Juujika didn't look at them.
"Why haven't you been completing your homework? I've noticed you score poorly after reading assignments, is it that you haven't been reading each night? Do you still no accept Him in your life, Ando-kun?"
There was a pause as those maroon eyes flickered over to the younger male, a smoldering expression burning in those void-like pupils. A lock of hair fell in front of one, to which the teacher brushed away with a small toss of his head. Then, his eyes wandered from the boy's face to quickly his neck.
The priest returned to his writing a second later, a strange question spewing from his mouth.
"That scar you have, on the back of your neck, where did you get it?"
So nonchalantly Father Juujika had spoken...
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Post by Ed-chan on Oct 24, 2006 17:22:31 GMT -5
"No, I haven't, sir..." The boy's ears flattened against his head. He should have done his homework, he really should have... It was just, "But why should I have to study about and believe in something that doesn't even give proof that it exists? Why?"
There was silence once again on the younger male's part, his ears twitching with a stubborn indignance.
He hated having to hear Father's ridiculous lectures on God and the Bible, or anything religious.
Yet his attention was grasped immediately when there was the mentioning of his scar. Blue eyes widened considerably.
"You can see it, too?"
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Oct 24, 2006 19:41:53 GMT -5
The tip of the little white stick ground angrily into the blackboard as the wielder listened to the youth. Kaoru always hated hearing this ignorant boy, how much it irked him to listen to such disbelief. That long chocolate tail swayed from the Father's rear in an unsteady rhythm, his left felinoid ear giving a spastic twitch.
"Ando-kun," his voice grew scary, grew deep, "how many times must I tell you, God is yo-..."
The priest paused when he heard the younger male speak once more, raising a brow as he turned with a burgundy stare. Cocking his head slightly to the side, the brown-haired teacher turned his attention back to his nearly-finished agenda for tomorrow.
"What are you talking about, of course I can see it...For a insolent delinquent who doesn't believe in God, you sure seem to admire the Holy Cross..."
There was something, something odd in the way Father Juujika was speaking, as if he knew, he truly knew about that scar. Having him being able to see it was suspicious enough anyway...
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Post by Ed-chan on Oct 25, 2006 8:10:54 GMT -5
The blue-haired kitten gave a glowering sort of frown at his teacher’s words, feline ears pressed against his skull. His gaze focused intently upon the elder male, his head still lowered with slight intimidation.
“No one else seems to be able to see it, Father…”
Makoto absentmindedly reached for the strap of his bookbag. There was a bit of suspicion forming in his mind. This had never happened before. Every time he mentioned the scar, no one seemed to know what he was talking about, that he was imagining things. Even his mother didn’t see anything wrong. So…
“How can you see it?”
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Oct 25, 2006 16:31:53 GMT -5
Sitting down at his desk, eyes still averted from the younger male, the priest shook his head; he was getting rather tired of this boy. Scribbling down on a crisp white sheet of paper as he thumbed through a stack of homework assignments, the Father once more adorned his face with his reading glasses.
And for the longest time, there came no reply as is Father Juujika were ignoring him.
A sign came a moment later past the older one's lips.
"I don't know, and honestly I don't care enough to wonder about it anymore. No I'd like for you to leave, Ando-kun, have a nice day and don't forget to read tonight..."
Shuffling papers after he dismissed the youth, delicate handwriting marring the once clean white pages with ugly red marks of incorrect answers, the priest tossed his head back, trying to rid some stubborn hair from his face.
And when he did, the slightest bit of discolored skin flashed near the nape of his own neck.
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Post by Ed-chan on Oct 26, 2006 17:04:44 GMT -5
To be honest, Makoto felt a bit dejected. It's not like he wasn't doing his work out of laziness; if he didn't want to believe in God, then that was his choice...wasn't it?
Ears still flattened against his head, the blue-haired kitten nearly turned away from Father Juujika. "You could have answered my question. I answered yours..." His voice was lowered and barely audible. "And whether someone wants to believe in God... if they choose not to... that doesn't make them a bad person..."
Blue eyes wandered towards his teacher once more as that sliver of something odd appeared, disappeared. His eyes widened momentarily. What was that? Was it really what he thought it was?
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Oct 26, 2006 22:29:33 GMT -5
His eyes never left those pages he was grading as he listened to the boy talk, it was visible in the subtle twitches his feline ears were expressing atop his head. Finally, after making one last mark on the paper he had been studying, he looked to the blue-haired kitten and sighed heavily through his nostrils.
A sudden itch attacked the priest's nape as he unconsciously reached back to remedy the problem, and when he did, he moved a bit of hair away, exposing more of that strange discoloration on the otherwise flawless skin. Whatever it was, be a scar or a tattoo or whatever in what looked like...
It couldn't have been, but the visible part looked like some sort of T or an L, it was hard to tell. There were also what vaugly looked like three English letters; an 'F', an 'A' and an 'I'. But, of course, he made no comment about the matter. It seemed he didn't even notice the boy seeing it.
Father Juujika was getting ready to make a cold and uncaring comment as usual when he heard a stranger's voice and a soft jingling noise.
"Neh, neh Aoi-kun, I don't think the Father really likes what you're saying. You better watch out too, JuuJuu's got a temper!"
It was a young man, dressed in outlandish street clothes, holding a small rosary in one hand. He talked with a thick accent, obviously of Osakan or Kansai origin. Twirling the small golden necklace around with a smile, winking at the other young man slyly.
Now, this strange boy looked to be about seventeen, but with the maturity of a seven year old. He had sticky fingers, what appeared to be melted chocolate on them, his hair was a flowing teal, a different color than the others, and a set of ears himself.
The boy gazed at the cross on the rosary with a scrutinizing expression, then crushed it in his hands.
"Heh, funny, neither do I..."
One could almost feel the fire burning in Father Juujika's aura.
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Post by Ed-chan on Oct 30, 2006 20:22:08 GMT -5
The kitten's blue ears perked up at the sight of those this, jagged letters carved so intricately into his teacher's neck. It startled him. Why did that look so familiar? If only he knew the rest of the word...
Subconsciously, his hand traced over his own scar, yet it flew away in an instant as he heard the new voice intrude upon his thoughts and that moment of ponderous silence.
The cracking of the rosary in the boy's hands ensured in Makoto's mind that someone was going to die...
"Who are you?"
"You don't need to know that yet, kid," a white-haired and earless man stood in the doorway, licking lazily at a cone of mint ice cream. He eyed the teal-haired boy a bit sternly for a few moments. "Hey, I thought I told you to slow down. You know how long it took me to get here?"
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Nov 2, 2006 18:27:54 GMT -5
The teal-haired boy dropped the broken rosary when he heard the other's voice, getting ready to respond before it was done for him. Reaching into his pocket with a little frown, the younger kitten huffed lightly, pulling out a small red sucker.
"It ain't my fault you're so slow!"
Whatever the kitten was going to say was silenced when he shoved the end of the sucker into his mouth, absent-mindedly grinding the remains of the rosary with his heel.
"...Leave. Now."
That cold voice, it was almost hard to recognize as the Father's; it was like nothing the man had ever spoken before. He stood up a second later, eyes ablaze with angry as he stared at the two intruders.
"You are not welcome in this place, leave before I..."
The priest was hesitant to say something, so his words were left unspoken as he slipped into a furious silence.
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Post by Ed-chan on Nov 4, 2006 18:49:33 GMT -5
"Before you what?" The white-haired one smirked. "Throw a Bible at us?"
He wasn't scared of that stupid priest at all. Not one bit. Taking another lick of ice cream, gray eyes eyed the slightly stunned, blue-haired boy.
"Is that your Sacrifice, Faithless? He don't look so tough."
Makoto had finally found enough awareness to blink a few times, slowly coming back to his senses. Why were they listening to Father? He sounded so angry... And what was a Sacrifice?
Slowly, he looked at his teacher, eyebrows furrowed and his expression slightly serious.
"Father... What are they talking about?"
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Nov 6, 2006 10:27:44 GMT -5
"Yeah, he's kinda scrawny-lookin'."
The teal-haired kitten removed the now half-eaten sucker from his mouth to giggle as he approached the other boy, frowning deeper when he had to look up to see his face. Why did he have to be so tall? Walking a circle around the taller boy, the intruder kitten gazed with eyes of scrutiny and stopped directly behind him.
"Ooh," pointing a sticky finger at the other's neck, "right there, I found it!"
Meanwhile, a left feline ear twitched in annoyance as the owner rose to his feet almost too hastily. But, the priest calmed himself so his next statement sounded cool and collected. "That is none of your concern; Ando-kun is merely..."
For a second, Father Juujika hesitated and his hesitation wasn't hard to miss at all.
"...My student, he is not my Sacrifice."
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Post by Ed-chan on Nov 7, 2006 22:55:09 GMT -5
Makoto's ears lowered once more against his skull, his eyes rolling to the side, watching the teal-haired male as much as he could manage. Something felt odd now. Why weren't they telling him anything?
"I don't understand. What's a Sacrifice?"
The white-haired male gulped down a greedy mouthful of ice cream, licked the minty green sap from his lips before he spoke,
"You are, stupid. Don't you know?"
The blue-haired male's blank expression answered his question.
"...Oh."
Mako turned towards his teacher, eyebrows furrowed out of confusion, desperation. He wanted to know. If he was what they said he was, then he wanted to know. "Father, what do they mean?"
It seemed like he would know.
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Post by The Wonder Fox on Nov 8, 2006 22:44:15 GMT -5
The priest looked at the blue-haired kitten with an uncertain look, furrowing his brow as his gaze turned to the intruders. He cleared his throat, placed a hand on his desk, then stared directly at the younger boy.
"They are correct, Ando-kun; you are my Sacrifice, my martyr."
With a grimace, Father Juujika turned around, moving his dark locks from his nape to reveal a strange shape etched into the skin of his neck. It was in the form of the Holy Cross, though it was upside-down. Jagged English letters were carved down the shaft of the cross.
'F-A-I-T-H-L-E-S-S'
An angry expression burned in those maroon eyes.
"There are fights known as Spell Battles, most humans are totally unaware, only those with true names can take part in these battles. A battle of words..."
His sentence faded off into silence, a silence that was broken by a cheery laughter.
"Hwah ha haha! Ain't that the sweetest thing?" the teal-haired boy nudged his partner playfully, a roaring chuckle erupting from his throat, "Aw, how cute, Aoi-kun and Juju are havin' a moment!"
A death glare of reddish-brown burned at the smaller kitten.
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