Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction ❯ Heaven and Earth ❯ Bamboo Baby ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Chapter Two: Bamboo Baby:
Love is powerful. It seems endless, creating
and recreating itself all the time. One of its best-known
by-products? Offspring. But, what of those unable to add that
little slice of happiness to their lives in the traditional
“normal way?” Well, there are other options.
A giant storm has hit Okinawa. Ju-Oh-Cho got
right to down to business wading through stacks of paperwork and
collecting souls. Tsuzuki decided to take Anna with him to do a
“soul sweep.”
“I don't understand,” Anna
said.
“Don't understand what?” he
asked.
“Why you brought me here with
you.”
“Extra help.”
“But I'm not a shinigami. I'm not even
dead, sort of.”
“We're swamped here so I thought you'd be
a good person to help me, Anna. I trust you.”
“Okay…” Anna nodded.
“So, what do you need me to do?”
“Keep an eye out, that's all. Hisoka and
Byakko are helping me, too.”
“Sure,” she agreed.
Don't know what use I could possibly be
here, but I'm gonna stick around. The moment Anna made up her mind to help out the best she
can, Byakko rushed over to the couple in a near panic.
“Tsuzuki!” the tiger shouted.
“Tsuzuki!”
“What is it?” his master
asked.
“I found someone alive!” the
shikigami exclaimed. Tsuzuki and Anna turned to each other with
surprise on their face. As if they felt a wave of shock.
“Where? Show me...” the shinigami
demanded.
“Hop on, and I'll take you!” Byakko
shouted. He lowered himself on all fours to allow his master to
straddled him. Once in position, Tsuzuki reached over to Anna and
helped her mount the tiger's back by pulling her up.
“Hang on tight,” he told her. Anna
wrapped her arms around Tsuzuki
as Byakko took off flying. They
arrived at a giant ruin of a house. The roof already caved in. Not
much was left standing. Tsuzuki made an odd face.
“Byakko, are you sure this is it?”
he asked.
“Yes!” the tiger insisted.
“They're definitely in there! I saw them.”
“Okay…” Tsuzuki said
uneasily. He and Anna teleported into the house. Once inside he
discovered that it looked just as bad as the exterior, if not
worse. Since water was dripping from a giant hole in the ceiling,
there was no point in exercising the usual custom of removing their
shoes.
“We can barely walk around,” Anna
complained.
“It'll be okay, just stick close to me.
Alright?” Tsuzuki told her.
“Right,” Anna scoffed.
The water came up to the couple's ankles. The
there wasn't much in the house, which seemed to be littered to the
rafters with debris: water logged furniture, floating pieces of
wood flooring and chunks of plants and trees from outside as well
as the odd animal carcass.
“How bad was this storm again?”
Anna asking, looking around her at the damage.
“Pretty bad,” her husband
answered.
“Like how bad from one to
ten?”
“Eleven.”
“Damn. Why didn't it make the
news?”
“That's what we're trying to find
out.” The duo entered a bedroom door at the end of the hall.
Byakko stood guard, waiting for them to conclude their
investigation. Two bodies, a man and a woman, lie dead on the
floor. It wasn't exactly clear how yet exactly how they had died.
Their bodies still looked fresh. Tsuzuki turned his attention to
Byakko.
“They're both dead,” he whispered.
“How can you be sure that anyone's alive
here?”
“There!” the tiger insisted,
nodding his head toward another room. Right then, they heard a soft
cry.
“Is that…?” Tsuzuki asked. He
and Anna ran toward the muffled cry. The dead woman was cradling
crying infant. The child couldn't have been more than a week old
and had been swaddled in a white blanket before all hell broke
loose. The cries grew louder as they approached.
“Look at you, little one,” Tsuzuki
cooed as he picked up the baby. “How long have you've been
here like this?” Anna walked over to have a look for
herself.
“The cheeks look so red,” she
remarked.
“Think the baby is sick?” he
asked.
“Well, the kid can't stay out
here,” she said.
Tsuzuki bounced the baby, and rubbed between
its shoulders. “So, I guess we're taking the baby with
us?” he shrugged.
“What else can we do? The parents are
dead and I don't see anyone else nearby.”
“Good point,” Tsuzuki nodded in
agreement. “Where do we find baby supplies?”
“I guess we can look around the house
first, then head back to the city.”
Anna, Tsuzuki, and Byakko searched the house
for anything that could help before meeting back in the main
room.
“I've got nothing,” Anna
said.
“No luck here, either,” Tsuzuki
replied. Just as they had given up hope of finding anything useful,
Byakko entered the living room with a diaper bag in his
mouth.
“Here..,” he offered. The tiger
dropped the bag onto one of the few dry spots left. Anna rushed
over, unzipped the bag and rummaged around inside. She found three
fresh diapers, a blanket, and a clean baby bottle.
“Hm, I guess everything else was used or
washed away,” she said. “Are you sure this is
it?”
“Yes,” Byakko said.
“Okay,” Anna said. “Shopping
it is then.” Tsuzuki smiled as he continued cradling the baby
in his arms.