Blood+ Fan Fiction ❯ Blood Legacy ❯ Debut ( Chapter 2 )

Kai shifted uncomfortably on the metal folding chair, and glanced down at the recital program. As usual, Irene and Julia were among the last of the performers, ranged between students much older than themselves. This way, they didn't make the other young children look awful.

 

But they were anyway. Kai flinched as the girl who was currently singing punched a high note and hit it sharp. Only one more number before Irene was up. Fortunately it was one of the piano pieces, a duet between a boy and a girl. At least when you messed up on the piano, the keys you hit wrong weren't off key. Next to him, David's young son sighed heavily and Kai smiled in agreement. Beyond him was Doc—everybody called the older Julia that to help with the confusion because “the older Julia” wasn't very complimentary—and after that David. He sat stoically looking forward, as he always did, and Kai wondered if the man was tone-deaf.

 

Finally Irene shyly made her way from where the students sat and up onto the piano bench. She had chosen a complicated piano concerto, and while she missed a few notes here and there, there was something about her playing that made the other students' sound flat. Dynamics, Haji had said. She hears not only the notes but how loud they should be, how they should feel.

 

Haji now stood in the back of the recital room, leaning against the wall in a shadow. His appearance was taking slow years to mend, even with the copious amounts of blood Doc's clinic gave him. He felt much better, though, and didn't seem to mind the injuries very much. Kai supposed that after losing an arm this didn't much compare. Beyond that, he had taken advantage of Julia's comparison to the famed musician who supposedly hid in the French Opera Populare and advised her often on her singing.

 

Kai sighed, glad that the next student was passable, and tried not to be nervous. Julia had given up on piano. She would never be great, and she could play anything well enough to please herself, but her heart wasn't in it. After years of begging, Haji came up with a solution to her desire for voice lessons. There was a recording studio in the downtown area, and they arranged for a vocal teacher to teach her in one of the sound-proof studios. Red Shield had cleared her as safe, and as she had lost a slight portion of her hearing to a gas explosion when she was little, all of her high and super-low frequency hearing was gone.

 

Basically, she could only hear the normal portion of Julia's voice. Still, Red Shield had moved the location they were holding the last few remaining mice to Hokkaido, where they were sure not to hear her. No one knew how they would react to her voice—no one was willing to risk a test—but all bets were on it being bad. Because Haji could hear it, but was impervious to the effects, he could tell her when to pull back. He promised that she had learned to control it, and that she knew never to use it in public. He told her to “hide her true potential” much as the Phantom's Christine had. It was an odd relationship at best, but it seemed to fulfill Julia's craving for devotion.

 

However, this small event was her first time to sing outside that booth, and everyone except Haji, Irene, and Julia herself was nervous. Well, except maybe DJ, David's son, who simply sat next to Kai sighing every twenty seconds as if he was bored out of his mind. He had yet to be initiated into Red Shield—he was only 8, just a year younger than the girls—but David planned for him to inherit his position, thus his name, David Junior, which only furthered the confusion of double names. David, Julia, Joel—it was enough to make Kai's head spin.

 

At last Julia stepped up to a smattering of applause, and Kai prayed to what powers may be that her debut would go much, much better than her mother's.

 

Julia reached up to adjust the microphone, and unnoticeably turned it off. She wouldn't need it. She nodded to the accompanist, who began to play the piano.

 

It was a haunting little music box melody that sent shivers up the spine.

 

Julia began to sing.

 

 

“Dancing bears, painted wings,

Things I almost remember…

And a song, someone sings,

Once upon a December…”

 

 

Kai felt the pit of his stomach go cold as only Julia and her mother could make it. He didn't know the song, hadn't heard it before, but the words seemed eerily significant to Julia's life before she had broken free of her cocoon. And it only got better…

 

 

“Someone holds me safe and warm,

Horses prance through a silver storm,

Figures dancing gracefully,

Across my memory….”

 

 

After a short vocalization that didn't need her full ability to sound enchanting and strange, she repeated the bridge and cut to the last verse.

 

 

“Far away, long ago,

Glowing dim as an ember,

Things my heart used to know,

Things it yearns to remember…

And a song someone sings…….”

 

 

It seemed the whole audience held it's breath with her pause.

 

 

“Once upon a December….”

 

 

The song trailed off in that same haunting music-box melody, and for a long moment, everyone was silent. Then, everyone not in Julia's party burst into enthusiastic applause unlike they had heard through the whole recital. DJ joined in too, standing on his chair and initiating a standing ovation. Kai, David, and Doc slowly got to their feet, a little stunned, and looking very worried.

 

Julia bowed repeatedly, looking not in the least bit surprised but very pleased with herself.

 

“Well,” David drawled through the applause, “she is her mother's daughter.”

 

Doc frowned and elbowed him disapprovingly. Kai worried about David's statement. Of course she looked like Diva, and she had clearly inherited her namesake talent, but up to this point everyone had avoided that particular turn of phrase due to what it implicated.

 

Kai watched his young niece soak in the attention. She has a good heart, he told himself. Diva was a product of her upbringing, not inherently evil. Saya had said so herself. Kai had taken pains to show her love without spoiling her, but as all parents do, he wondered how well he was managing. No, he reasoned. Julia was destined for something much better than her mother.

 

After a few long minutes, the audience settled back into their seats, murmuring excitedly. The woman arranging the recital had to yell to get them to be quiet, not realizing that the microphone had been turned off. The problem was quickly solved, and the recital resumed normality. Kai felt sorry for the last two performers, who could reasonably hold their own, but were clearly nervous about being shown-up by a 9-year-old. At last the recital ended, and the audience began to break up.

 

Irene and Julia came running over from where the performers were sitting. Kai picked up Irene, Julia hugged DJ fiercely, and he protested loudly. The three of them were much like siblings because they were so close in age, and Red Shield had wagered it was good for them to be close, both for the semblance of normalcy and DJ's eventual position as their protector.

 

Julia let him go quickly, already aware of her alarming strength. “Did you like my singing?” she asked ecstatically.

 

“Yeah, it was great!” DJ replied. “Made the whole boring thing worth it.”

 

Julia grinned for a moment, and then glanced up at Irene. She tugged DJ's sleeve and jerked her head toward her sister.

 

“Oh yeah. Your piano playing was really pretty, Irene,” he said, and it sounded genuine.

 

Irene smiled. “Thanks.” She hopped down out of Kai's arms and started heading towards the crowd.

 

“Where are you going?” Kai called after her.

 

“Haji,” she called over her shoulder in explanation.

 

Kai smiled. Now there was a relationship he understood. Julia was shielded from her abnormality by her age-appropriate self-centeredness, but Irene, being quiet and observant, saw what her sister didn't. She knew she was different, and if Kai had to guess, it probably scared her. In Haji she found what any Queen found in a devout chevalier: relation. She wasn't alone, Haji was like her and he'd managed so far, and he would protect her. With his life, if the situation called for it. Haji had extended his loyalties to Saya to the twins, and while she slept they were his entire concern.

 

Kai had to admit, Haji was a great help. Like all children, the girls sometimes misbehaved or defied him, Julia more often Irene, and if push came to shove they could accidentally kill him. Haji hadn't had to mete out punishment yet, as it stood he needed only to give them a stern look and they behaved. It looked almost as if there was some transfer of information, or merely they were sizing each other up, and the girls knew it was useless. Even if they were queens, and it was two against one, they were still not strong enough to take on a full-grown, centuries-old chevalier. They would not know to use their blood—which experiments done by Red Shield showed wouldn't work anyway—and Julia's voice, a potent weapon, was useless against him. The silent showdown was feral and frightening, but the girls rarely needed it.

 

He watched Haji effortlessly lift Irene into his arms, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, eyes half-closed. They waited for the crowd to clear out, and the woman who had arranged the recital approached Kai.

 

She introduced herself as one of the Suzuki teachers, Suzuki being a sort of method and collaboration all rolled into one. Individual teachers taught the method, and would come together for events like these. Usually Suzuki strictly stuck to classical music, but Julia was a very advanced student and since she had failed to find her mother's aria anywhere had lost her taste for classical music. She was also very difficult to argue with.

 

The teacher grinned as she made small talk, but Kai could tell she was dying to talk to him about something. At last she let it out.

 

“You know, your daughter Julia—”

 

“—niece—” he injected.

 

“Niece,” she corrected, “has quite a talent.”

 

He grinned, trying to act the part of the proud parent. “I know, she got it from her mother.”

 

She frowned a little. “Is she…”

 

Kai became somber. “Yes, she passed when they were born.”

 

The teacher put her hand to her heart. “I'm so sorry to hear that. I know that twins can be hard, my sister-in-law had a pair herself.”

 

Kai nodded.

 

The teacher looked around a little. “And the father?” she asked cautiously.

 

His heart clenched a little. “He died before they were born.”

 

She gasped a little. “Orphans… how sad.”

 

He nodded again. “I was one myself, once.”

 

Consolingly, the teacher put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, I suppose you would be their legal guardian, then?”

 

“Yup.” As long as Red Shield said so, but he doubted they'd make the same mistake they made with Saya. She had made it clear before she went to sleep that she wanted them in his custody.

 

“Well,” she said coyly, her mood brightening. “If I were you I'd be looking into getting Miss Julia a record deal. I know several companies who might sponsor her. I could contact them if you would like….”

 

Kai glanced down at Julia. She looked totally disinterested in the conversation, and although she was looking over at where Irene and DJ were, he knew better than to assume she wasn't listening. She was very good at making you think otherwise.

 

“I don't think that might be the best idea right now. She should focus on her studies.”

 

The teacher nodded, not looking convinced.

 

“I'll think about it, though.”

 

She smiled and made her excuses to go help gather up the equipment.

 

As they walked out the door, David gave him one of those `we're going to have a meeting about this' looks and Kai just sighed.

 

 

AN

BWAHAHA!!! Of course Julia couldn't help but be anything other than fabulous! The recital piece she sang is “Once Upon a December” from the cartoon Anastasia, and doesn't belong to me. For that matter, none of the original Blood+ characters do… yet.

Please tell me if anything is confusing or unclear. I'd be more than happy to adjust it.