The Goduncle [Priv./Kasu]

The tires slipped, and Kasumi got out of the bright red car after thanking her friend’s mother for bringing her home. Due to some reason, the raven haired woman had insisted on driving the girl instead of letting her take the bus. Perhaps it was genuine worry about someone as young as Kasumi, or simple politeness. She wasn’t sure about the woman’s motives, but didn’t really mind being brought back. It had only taken her 25 minutes to get home now, where if she would have opted for the bus, it would have taken her over an hour, which didn’t include the walk from the bus stop. With her deep blue backpack over her shoulder, Kasumi closed the car door by gently slamming it back into place. A smile crossed her lips before she turned towards the house, sighing with satisfaction. While it had been fun to stay at her friend’s place for a few days, she was happy to be home again. To be able to do what she wanted, whenever she wanted.. To not feel awkward about getting a glass of juice or watching some TV.. yea, that’s what she liked about being home the most.

Moving forward she made her way towards the door and after having fumbled with the pocket of her backpack for a bit, Kasumi fished out the key. She put it into place, opening the door with a click before putting it in the side pocket of her hooded jacket. Her feet carried her inside and she was curious whether Ichiro would be at home. With her sneakers parked on the right side of the door, she sneaked over the soft wood before popping her head around the corner. The backpack was left on the floor at the kitchen door while she made her way deeper into the house. Walking past the living room her eyes met the sight of familiar black hair.

 Oh, so Ichiro was home!

Happy about seeing him again, Kasumi rushed forward before allowing her hands to gently curl around his head, depriving him from his vision. After having spent a few months in this house, Kasumi had grown attached to the man, more or less. In a way, he had become family. Her lips curled up and the girl exclaimed full of excitement.

“Guess who is home?!”

A soft giggle escaped her mouth when she let go of his head, backing off a few steps. Perhaps they could go out to eat together? If he didn’t have to work tonight..? She really hoped that he had some spare time, then she could tell him all about her weekend!

“We’ve been to t-.”

The words stopped coming. Staring, Kasumi’s brain tried to process what had happened to Ichiro. His hair was black, but.. This wasn’t him. Who was this man? Kasumi’s breath stopped and she took another step back, cautiously gauging the situation. The young guy was tall, way taller than her, lean and muscular from what she could see. He looked Japanese; even with his bright eyes he still looked more Japanese than she did.

“W-who are you?!”

There was no trace of the previous excitement. Now, her voice was filled with fear and confusion. What if he was some burglar? Her eyes scanned the room. He seemed to be too relaxed to have been caught red handed. Nothing about the place indicated that he had been looking through things, trying to find something that was worth of taking. Could he be a friend of Ichiro? But the Quincy wasn’t home.. So why was his potential friend sitting in the living room?

The frown she wore on her face only grew larger as she tried to make sense of this situation. Ichiro hadn’t said anything about anyone visiting them. Was this someone Yumi knew? Yea! Probably! That would make more sense. The young woman had probably brought a friend, and Kasumi had simply mistaken him for her godfather because of the color of his hair.

“I thought that you were Ichiro.. sorry about, your eyes and stuff.”

Shifting awkwardly, Kasumi looked to the side, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious. Her gaze was glued to the wall, and she tried to ignore her fail. She had just touched a random man! He must be shocked! But she hadn’t meant to do that! It had been an accident. Calming down her rapidly beating heart, she tried to sense if Yumi was home. Perhaps her presence would make the situation a little less odd.

|Words: 752 – GP 15|

The sound of car wheels stopping outside wasn't that weird; his home back in Rome had been near the middle of the city and he had become used to the sound of every day life happening right ouside his door. Because of that fact, he hadn't thought anything weird about the fact that he could hear a car coming up outside - Ichiro had neighbors, they were probably coming home from work (the fact that it was the morning, around 11 o'clock, didn't seem to occur to him. Maybe he thought that they had had a nightshift and were coming home now to rest?)

However, it was the front door opening that had surprised Haru. Ichiro had said that he was going out to the estate, and given the fact that he was the leader of that clan he very much doubed that he would be home any time soon. Maybe he'd forgotten something? Ichiro had always been a somewhat forgetful person, it wasn't that out of character that he might have just forgotten about something when he left for work this morning.

As such, he never once got out of his seat to go find out who was coming and going so noisly. Still, it was what came around the door that shocked him. Where he had expected his brother (tall, dark, and not very handsome), instead there was a petite girl with brilliant white hair. What the hell? This was clearly not a daughter of Ichiro's, Haru's children had all had dark hair so he very much doubted any child of Ichiro's would have anything but the familiar Tsubaki's raven hair.

So, who was she? She hadn't broken in, there was something in her body language that made it seem like it was natural for her tobe here and he had heard the door unlock without a crunch, so she had to have used a key. Where did she get a key? All these thoughts and questions ran through his head as the girl moved past the doorframe, and only amplified in volume when she turned to go into the room.

What the hell was going... her hands were around his face, depriving him of vision. Part of him wanted his hand to shoot to his gun, but another part of him realized rapidly that this wasn't hostile. No... he recognized this behavior, Rose had done it enough back when she was this girl's age; It was guess who!

God that was a childish game, but he had to assume that this meant she had some sort of cute relationship with Ichiro. He could understand why she had mistaken him for Ichiro, they were brothers after all - they looked extraordinarily similar. Still, though, he looked twenty years younger than his old fogey of a brother - how did someone make a mistake that large?

Because of that mistake, when she took her hands away, his eyebrow had raised itself into a quizzical expression as he stared at her. She was asking who he was, and that was just rude. He had just been sitting here, minding his own business and trying to deal with an issue that was beyond either of their true comprehension, and she had interrupted that, and somehow he was the bad guy?

"Who am I? I'm pretty sure you've got that the wrong way round; this is my brother's house, and he's never mentioned anyone else living here other than the two of us. I'm pretty sure he'd have mentioned someone important enough to own a house key, so either something very fishy is going on, or that idiot's forgotten something important again."

There wasn't any annoyance to it, just confusion. Of course, he had thrown in exactly who he was just in the way that he was speaking (not that she was going to believe him, considering he looked twenty five years younger than Ichi), but she probably wasn't paying close enough attention to what he was saying to realize just how much he'd given away.

Still, either way, he was disturbed now and he wasn't going to find it easy to get back into his work, so he might as well find out as much about this girl as physicaly possible. After so long having to deal with attempts on his life and the loss of his wife, his personage was probably not as welcoming as it usually would be so he had to change that. There was no way in hell that he was going to be able to get on with a child if he continued being a miseryguts. Moving the laptop off his knees, he stretched before standing up.

As she had correctly ascertained, he towered over her (her head coming up to the top of his solar plexus), and now that he was standing up he looked even more intimidating. Flush with muscles, it was very clear that this was someone that she probably didn't want to get on the bad side of. Even with his peaceable body language, the fact that she had basically just assaulted this guy's face was probably not something that she would have chosen to do if she had known all the facts beforehand.

Incidentally, towards her other question, Yumi wasn't home; He'd never met this Yumi girl, and after the first impression of this strange one, he probably wouldn't entirely be sure how to take her. First, Ichiro never mentioned anything about having a family outside of Haru and their sister, and now here was one, sensing for another.Damn, Ichiro's family was weird and secretive. Was this what came from hiding from your family?

"Look, we clearly got off on the wrong foot, so let's start again - I'm Haru, Ichiro's younger brother. He said I could stay here whilst we deal with a little bit of a family issue. You, however, are an unknown. Who are you? What's your relation to my idiot brother? I assume you're close because he gave you a key, but he never once told me I had a neice."

There was something awkward about this situation; well, more awkward than the fact that he had been mistaken for his older brother, or the fact that some as-until-now unheard of girl just coming through the front door as if she owned the place (which he was about to find out she did). No, beyond all that, there was something off about the way that she was acting this very minute.

Despite the innocence to her body language, he was pretty sure that he could tell that the girl was sensing his reiatsu, though he wasn't entirely sure why - it was like the feeling of being watched, but stronger. He wasn't entirely sure she was, but just in case, he decided to check hers as well. His eyes actually opened in surprise as he sensed her out - her pure reiatsu was actually higher than his own!

Admittedly not by much, but there was clearly some difference between the two of them. How could something like this be possible,  this girl looked like she was ten and he was four times her own age. He should have crushed her through sheer amount of reiatsu... then again, he considered, he had been twice as strong as that nine hundred year old arrancar that he had met last week.

Maybe reiatsu wasn't something that relied too much on age; what mattered in combat was experience anyway - he was certain that he could beat this girl in a fight if it came to that, but maybe that was just his battered pride from finding someone that was a quarter his age and yet was so much more powerful than he was. Maybe he was just responding with puffing his chest out because otherwise it would be way too difficult to take.

His eyes looked away from her for a moment, trying to avoid her noiticing the evident embarrassment that rested behind those eyes. He was a soldier, he was so strong that he represented an entire nation with his every word and action, and yet he was still liable to being weaker than a little girl. If that wasn't humiliating, he wasn't sure what was. He'd killed a thousand hollows on his own over the years, and now an 8 year old was better than he was. That was emasculating if nothing else.

Either way, he moved over to the head of the sofa, sitting on the corner of it in an attempt to be more comfortable. Thankful, too, as he was so shocked by what she said afterwards that he might have stumbled over were he not somewhere secure. This girl was the daughter of Weylin? The god-daughter of his brother and the daughter of one of his best friends... it was like he was destined to meet this girl, he was just amazed that he hadn't yet.

"You're Weylin's child?" he said, his tone a lot softer and kinder than it had been a moment ago, showing deep affection for the man that she had just mentioned. Whilst his brother was just an "idiot", Weylin was an old friend and his ideal king to boot, so there was obvious, deep-seated adoration in his very countenance.

"Well, now that you say it, I can see it. You have his strength, and the white hair. Though, I have to say, you speak Japanese way too well for a German. Was your mother Japanese per chance?" Even with her being adopted, there was a sort of familial resemblance that he just couldn't ignore. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but he honestly did notice things about her that reminded him of his old friend.

As she hadn't mentioned that she was just an adopted child, he honestly believed that she was the offspring of the true Konig, and he didn't even hesitate in that belief for a moment. Then she mentioned that she was just adopted, and Haru's face visibly fell. There was a deep-rooted part of him that worried about his friend, and knew that he needed someone else with him to make sure that his idiocy didn't do too much to stain the world.

"Oh... for a moment, I had hoped he'd finally gotten around to settling down whlist i hadn't been paying attention. He needs to get a good woman in his life to stop him from doing anything stupid again. He's going to get himself killed at this rate, and him being dead isn't going to solve anything. Now, let's get that tea."

Following after her, he began to dart around the kitchen, getting out some of the food that they had left in the house. He needed to eat something, he'd not had something since the night before and quite honestly he was starving. But, right now, he wasn't hugely fascinated with food. He wanted to know more about the girl that had just walked into her brother's house.

She was a chosen child - someone who had been adopted by the once and future king and was her brother's goddaughter. He was actually somewhat sad there was no role for him to play in her life, but maybe he could be a cool uncle? Part of him had actually missed having his own children around, so she was a welcome addition.

"I'll take a tea, thanks Kas. Plenty of sugar, but no honey. Never could stand that stuff" he said, his mind obviously not really on the question. She was asking about him, about whether he was a quincy... how much should he tell this girl?

He would normally not be squeamish about telling people stuff, but this was the child of a close friend. What if he was angry about him telling her too much? What if he upset her and that upset Wey by proxy? He needed to step around her carefully, she was a potential minefield. So, rather than going over the top, he simply answered her question

"Yes - I am a Quincy. I am Lord Haru Tsubaki D'Agostino, head of the Agostino family, heir to the Tsubaki, ally to the Weylins and Quincy councilman of Italy... You can call me "Uncle Haru" if that's too much to remember." he said, laughing slightly. It was the kind of humor that other people just didn't get, it was what he liked to call "dad humor".

His liege's child was a very quick talker, before he had even been able to answer her first question she had already asked her second one. There was something about her that was weirdly charismatic, though maybe that was the prejudice left in his mind whenever things were connected to Weylin. There was nothing wrong with answering her question honesty, so he did as such. "Sì, Kasumi. Potrei essere dal Giappone, ma l'Italia è la mia casa."

The italian sprung off his tongue with ease, having spoken it for twenty years there was no hesitation there. In fact, it was only since he had come back to Italy that he had actually stopped thinking in Itaian - it was weird how, when you changed your primary language, the little voice in your head that was your brain suggesting thoughts spoke in a different language than the one you were raised in.

That was actually the point where many people began to consider you fluent in a language, when you actually began to speak it inside your own head rather than simply out loud. However, he knew that she probably had absolutely no Italian knowledge and so added a brief translation a few seconds afterwards.

"That means; yes. I might have been born in Japan but Italy's my true home - it's where I raised my children and where I lived with my wife until recently. Which is part of the reason that I'm here in the first place, I should mention." This was actually the first time that he had ever mentioned something about his actual home life. So far, he had mentioned that he was Ichiro's brother but that was about it. Hell, the fact that his body made him look like he hadn't yet gotten out of puberty might have caused Kasumi to, reasonably enough, believe that he wasn't old enough to have a proper partner.

Were she to ask anything further about that, he would happily tell her, but there was no point in giving her more information than she was actually asking for. Besides, she seemed a bit too young to have the entire situation of the problem of Kingship related to her so he might want to attempt to avoid any conversation that might lead on to mentioning stuff about that. He would tell her the truth about anything she asked, he decided, but he would avoid giving her pointless information. That was the best way to avoid Weylin breathing down his neck for upsetting his daughter.

Sadly, the next question she asked was honestly not very interesting - it seemed that she was more interested in the fact that he was from a foreign country than she was about anything to do with her adopted father or godfather. Maybe it made sense - Kasumi was a uniquely Japanese name, and even with her being adopted by Weylin that didn't necessarily mean that she had ever come to Europe.

As many racists as there were in Japan who believed that the outside world was filled with nothing but "filthy Gaijins" as some of them called them, there were people who were curious about seeing the cultures and people of the outside world. She must be part of the second group, he figured. Taking a grip of the mug that he had been so generously given (well, considering the fact that they were Ichiro's, maybe "generously" was the wrong word), he took a mouthful before answering.

"Well, it honestly depends what you mean by that. I've gone to many different countries, and I've met many different people. It's what comes from representing a country as a councilman. I've been to America, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Jamaica and many places besides, but I wouldn't call it a world-tour. I've been to six of the seven continents, but that doesn't mean that I've been on a world tour. Even with the forty years I've had alive, even I've not had enough free time to go everywhere. But, maybe I'll finish those trips one day."

There was a slight melancholy tone to his voice as he mentioned the times he'd spent abroad, as if he was reliving them behind his eyes as he mentioned them. They weren't exactly holidays, they were business trips - meeting with representatives from the Quincy council, or being shipped out to help deal with a clear and present danger to the rest of the Quincy community.

His desire to make himself the perfect representative for Italy had driven him to doing a lot of work away from his wife and children, and he had only realized around five years ago just how much of his precious time with them he'd wasted. That was the issue with anything even remotely close to immortality; you have all the time in the world so you take it granted that everyone is in the same boat as you.

It wouldn't have been a problem if he was a Soul Reaper and his children had aged just like him, but the sad fact of the matter was that they weren't - his oldest had even begun to look older than his own father, something that caused no end of confusion in family reunions. Still, he didn't regret going on those missions - he had done and seen things that other men would have killed to have the ability to do, so regretting doing them would only make him seem impetuous.

No, he just wished he'd spent more time whilst he could with his children before they'd grown up. After a moment of staring off into space with a slightly distant look in his eyes, he snapped out of it and instead decided to pose a question to the girl.

"But, the more important question is - why are you interested? Are you intending to, when you're old enough to travel safely, go on your own little world-tour? I'm sure Weylin would have mentioned something if he was going to take that long a time away from his duties, so I'm sure you're not going with your old man any time soon, but is this something I should be aware of in the future?"

Oh, he did speak Italian. Such a shame she didn't understand a word from what he said. He might have been making the words up and Kasumi wouldn't have known. She couldn't even distinguish them from one another. The only thing that clearly jumped out to her was her name: Kasumi. All the other stuff was one line of foreign sounds. A good thing that the man translated it right after having said it. Haru said that he had- what? He had kids?

Torn out of her daydreaming about going on an adventure, Kasumi couldn't help but to frown. He looked too young to have kids! Old.. way older than Kasumi, but still too young! Oh! Maybe his kids were little? Of course the girl would have preferred for them to be her age, but someone younger than her would be fun too! Maybe they could play together when they got older. That would be awesome!

There was a sudden smile on her face as she sipped from her tea. Her excitement grew rapidly and she couldn't help but to squeeze in another question.

“How old are they? Will they visit us? Can I play with them when they do?”

Or, a few questions..

Though before the raven haired Quincy answered her questions, he posed his own. It was about her curiosity that had to do with travelling. As he came too close to the reason that she was asking, Kasumi couldn't do anything else but to take another sip from her cup of tea. Her eyes were directed at the table as she put the cup down. While she didn't want to lie to him, she couldn't tell him the real reason behind her interest. Of course he could always think that she was just being curious- which she was; so it was the truth. Deciding that things might be interpreted in different ways, Kasumi hoped to make use of the ambiguity that every language had and answer Haru's question.

“No, Weylin-san didn't tell me anything about going on a trip. But, yes, I would want to travel the world in the future.”

No way for him to know how close that future would be. Satisfied with herself, Kasumi got up and made her way to the kitchen counter. Her eyes scanned it for something sweet and the moochi looked rather appealing. Picking up the dish with the sesame covered sweets, she brought it back to the table, placing it between her and the Quincy. Her fingers quickly took one of them and she bit, enjoying the taste while chewing carefully before taking another bite. With the second bite the little ball of sweetness was gone and Kasumi washed it away with more tea.

“How long will you stay here? Do you hunt Hollows too?”

Perhaps one day they could go on a hunt together! That would be fun! Taking another moochi, Kasumi's mind had jumped from the world trip to a Hollow hunt. While she wasn't sure if Weylin or Ichiro would like the idea, she knew that she sure as hell did. Lately her trips through town had become more frequently, and she wondered whether her godfather knew what she was up to. Maybe it was for the better if he didn't. Kasumi didn't want to worry the man.

|Words: 552 – GP 11 – Tgp 51|

There was a reason why people say "don't judge a book by its cover" and that is because the contents can often be completely different from what they look like on the outside. A great novel can be disguised as simple smut, by putting the cover of the Qu'Ran over a copy of teen fiction the contents are no more spiritual or fascinating than the teen fiction otherwise, and a man who looks to be seventeen can have children of his own beyond that age. He might look like a kid, but he had seen his own children grow beyond Kasumi's own age twice, and his final one was only a year her junior by the look of things so she really shouldn't judge.

That being said, a smile spread across Haru's face as Kas' childish excitement reminded him of Rose. It was so nice to have someone that reminded him of the old days when he was able to see them properly... but then his face fell when she asked her second question. "Will they visit us"? it was an innocent question, and he was certain that she had not meant to slight him by saying it, but nonetheless it hurt his heart to truly think about that question.

He missed his children, there was not a day that went by when he didn't think about them, but they were somewhere he couldn't reach. Him giving into his affection for them and paying them a visit could pose a serious threat to their well-being; he had no idea if his grandfather still had spies around him, and if he did then them knowing where he had spirited his children away to would ruin any attempt at keeping them safe that he had orchestrated since this entire attack had happened.

"That... is down to my grandfather." Haru said, not quite speaking the whole truth. This was the entire reason that he was here, this was the family issue that he had spoken about. Maybe... maybe he ought to tell her the truth. At least, a fair bit of it. That would help her understand the situation that the Quincy community, and especially the heirs to that lunatic, had found themselves in.

"Kasumi... Has your father ever told you about how the Quincy moot finished? About why, despite him being widely considered the better man and despite people showering love and affection onto his shoulders like some sort of A-list celebrity, he was discarded for someone that, until eight months ago, nobody actually knew about? Did he explain about what my grandfather did or did he just tell you that he lost the Kingsmoot? If he's gone out of his way to avoid telling you the events that transpired, I'd rather not ruin his attempts, but it'd help me to explain why you're not going to be able to see my children for a long time."

There was a grave seriousness in his voice as he talked; he hated going behind his friend's back, Weylin was a good man and Haru's loyalty to him hadn't wavered even an inch even during the attacks on his life. Despite this, he knew that Kasumi would inevitably be forced to confront the situation that her father's people had found themselves in.

She wasn't a quincy herself, she wore no Mekkakyu and there was something about her spiritual pressure that made it clear that she wasn't one of his kinsmen, but nonetheless as the heir to the one true King of the Quincy it was something that she would have to deal with. Even with his plans alongside Ichiro, there was a very strong likelihood that this issue wasn't something that would be going away any time soon.

Even were they able to take his grandfather out of the equation, until they could make a move on the pretender king himself the war would still be looming over their heads. A damocles sword, forcing them into action that they clearly hoped that they would never have to take. If Kasumi knew about this sooner rather than later she could make actions to keep herself safe. He understood attempting to hide it from her, war was something ugly and something no child should have to suffer through, but information helped you to make judgments and she would have to learn to make her own very, very soon.