A/N: This is the second remake of Fall of Naitto. It was made to closely match the original story and thus appeal more to the actual readers. I’ve noticed how I’ve made this horrible to begin with, so I guess it’s not so bad for me to edit it big time. A friend recently spotted a lot of its major flaws. I basically added more detail, description; made the story match closer to the real history; made a new outline; and last but not least, started to use Word 2000 again. It’s honestly better than what I’ve been using before.
A/N: Another note. The chapters do have names. There will always be the novel’s title (Fall of Naitto) at the beginning, the chapter number, its title, and then a name following. That’s the name of the narrator. I’ve added that as I often change narrators and it’s a quick way to reduce confusion. If there’s no name, then, it’s in 3rd person POV.
The Fall of Naitto
Lesson One: Rolling under Dumpsters is Good if you’re Being Attacked.
Kristy.
The day started off normally, almost peacefully, serenely. Despite the sounds of cars and a large crowd to my left and battle shouts to my right, it was considered quiet.
Too quiet.
I jumped out of the bed, looking around. I was in last night’s jeans and banana yellow shirt. There were bottles of Whiskey, some homemade Rakiya and plenty of beer cans everywhere on the desk, floor… sleeping bags. They were all empty. Supposedly, I was hung over. There was still that bad aftertaste of the Rakiya in my mouth, I definitely reeked of booze, and I definitely suffered from the countless hangover symptoms.
I hate being hung over. Now, if there was a way to treat the hangover efficiently, I would do that, but unfortunately all the traditional methods did not work.
And with a flash, I remembered now; last night’s party over victory on [SG].
They were the FW Clan’s worst enemies… I suppose. I guess that they were supposed to be mad about that. We’d be expecting some illegal bombarding from them on our Clan House. Let’s hope that they don’t go as far as to reaching Fire’s sorry ass.
Which reminds me…
“Fire! Where are you?” I picked some cans from the floor, stacked them in a neat pile, and waited for his response. It’s not the first time he wakes up before me; he’s never hung over. “Fire?”
“Good morning,” said a voice I knew too well. He was close. Dreadfully close. I turned around, walked a little bit closer, and tripped on a sleeping bag.
Ouch! Who put that there? I picked it up, looked up, around, back and to my front again, but found… nobody. And another of Fire’s bad tricks, how bad can he get? “Err, Fire, you can go out of the—“
“Good morning, I said.” I looked behind me. Fire was there. Then how did he— “it’s 4 PM. Be happy you skipped school… Here’s your homework.” With a certainly horrible grace, he picked him schoolbag up, and took out two copies of blank sheets.
“What’s this?”
“That’s arts… And this is math. Oh, obviously… English.” A few other calculation and essay instruction sheets followed. “You’d have to do this essay by Friday. The math’s for tomorrow, though. And the arts are only if you want to.” But he knew I was the best artist in the whole Clan!
Defeated, I took the stack of homework, and set it on the desk. My nose was feeling strangely itchy. “Emm… Fire? Did you clean up?” I cleared the way of some other glasses, one smelling like Whiskey and the other still red from the wine that was in it. I also kept stacking the beer cans up; besides, 20 cents for a can was definitely worth it.
I could see Fire’s reflection in the Whiskey glass. He was grinning, as if hiding something important, and his messy light brown hair suggested he had forgotten he had to go to school.
Just as I was wondering why he was this way, I saw the date on the papers. They were all from today.
Strange. Strange indeed.
“Emm… Fire?”
“Yes?”
“Did you go to school today?”
His grin disappeared. “Of course.”
“You don’t look like it.” I sighed, started doing the math equations.
What was pi again? 3.14, right… Huh… Circumference. That’s easy. “Say, was Sammy at school today?”
“He was…” This was starting to get awkward. I could feel it. The short conversations, which were more like interrogations in a dark and cold room under a white light, were extremely difficult to decipher. Knowing as Fireballman was such a pro at lying… I must’ve underestimated him.
I had realized a few months earlier that I’d never get to lead his clan. Never. This, joining clan FW, was it worth it? Yet I still kept the act. The same act that made me look like the culprit behind the ZK incident. Well… we know that it’s not my fault. I’m just the legendary Georgi’s little sister who happened to have a grudge on him at the time. Nothing serious… I believe.
“Yes, he was,” he continued. I looked down at my math, while still keeping an eye on him. So Sammy skipped school again? “But… he came home early. Then he went over to a friend’s house.” I could see sweat trickling down his temples.
“Don’t try to hide it, my friend. Sammy wasn’t at school. You’re a good liar, but only when it involves you.” I waited for him to look down, and nod. He did so, and thus I sighed and continued, “We have to admit, if Sammy wasn’t at school, that means that something happened. Or maybe…”
I cleared my throat. “Maybe it was you who didn’t go to school. In this case, what did you see?” I put the remaining cans in a stack just parallel of the desk. Also, so for apparent reason, I decided to pick up the sleeping bags, bed sheets and other things lying on the floor.
“Yes, you got it all right!” he babbled, let himself fall in the desk’s chair.
“Then what?”
“I also was hung over, see… I woke up about a few hours before. Was it two? I can’t clearly remember. Anyway, Sammy brought the homework to me, and I told him to go search for the culprit…” He stopped, sighed.
“What culprit?” I was now completely in power of this. Another false response and I’d make him swallow those lies back whole. Unlike more people, I did not appreciate dishonesty; more like, I despised it. More than I despised death. Those who had to lie for their own benefits were all the worst people in Gateway… indeed.
“Well, around 3 o’clock, some big, tanned guy came to the Falcons’ gates. Since I was the only person around, I decided to check him out and let him in the terrain… big mistake. He started yelling and threatening FW if he didn’t find “her”. Honestly, I think there was something wrong about him.” He stopped to let the words have an effect. Seeing as there were only 3 woman members in FW, and since he wanted a Falcon her, I guess it was obvious he wanted me. Unless…
“What did you respond?” I asked. “Also, how did you get him to go away?”
“When I kept my mouth shut—because you know he’s after you—he just shut up as well and left. But he left some papers behind. I also had the time to notice his logo—very weird one, plain black with a turquoise feather.” He coughed. His nose reddened. “The papers were sent to you. Unfortunately, one remained unreadable while the other was plain blank.”
“Almost like a response I’m supposed to write back?”
“Exactly.” He hissed a cough again, “I think I’ve caught a cold.”
“You know idiots don’t catch colds!”
He shook his head in an annoyed manner, and shoved three papers in my hands. “The other I found in our mailbox. Good luck.”
He then turned back, walked up the door, and slammed it shut, leaving me, confused nd ignorant, contemplating the letters from the supposedly unknown addresser. Let’s just see what you’ve gotten yourself into, Kristy. This is just your type of thing.
And with no other word, I opened the mail.
A/N: Emm, I hope you liked this. Part B is going to be coming pretty soon.