Misery Loves Company

What goes around comes around
A young girl with steel gray hair tied in twintails, and dark blue eyes was staring at the sky from the roof of her manor. She seemed to either have just woken up, or finished something rather exhausting.

"When is Dad going to visit again?" She sighed.

"When we least expect it..."

It was here that another teenage girl's figure had appeared to stand right beside her. Her appearance might as well have been a mirror; her white hair was laced in long twin tails. Blue and seemingly pupiless eyes looked mirthfully over at her sitting companion, a warm smile decorating the face.

"That sounds like him." Aoi smiled warmly at her sister. "I just wish he'd visit more often. It wouldn't kill him."

The other woman, known as Kyuui, turned herself to sit down on the roof. Her legs dangled off carelessly like ropes hanging off of the ceiling. "Don't worry." She assured. "Soon, he won't just have to visit, but he'll stay with us...this time..."

It was a year after their father's battle with their aunt. That very year, the man had willingly surrendered his intentions to his family in the hopes that they would understand through Midoriko's words. It was no surprise, shortly after, that he would come along to greet the family as a friend...not an enemy.

Flashback...

''The door opened, and despite the fact that it was a warm summer's day, cold seeped into the house as Midoriko entered. She opened her mouth to speak. "I'm back!"

''Unfortunately, Tereya was the nearest one to the door at the time, lying on the couch. And upon feeling the cold sensation... well, she wasn't exactly calm as she was before her daughter had entered. Instantly, she shot up, arms hugging around herself. "What in the holy hell....?!" She stammered. "Did you bring the whole North Pole with you?!"''

''Ahatake understood instantly. His precious daughter had reverted to her former personality. "What's up Mido?" He asked tentatively.'' ''Midoriko turned to him. "Father, I'd like you to stop going after Taiki." She said, her tone ice.'' ''Whatever Ahatake had expected to hear, that wasn't on the top of his list. He was speechless.''

''And whatever Tereya's comment was about to say, it was immediately shot to hell. Her eyes widened in considerable surprise. The invisible burden she had resisted on her shoulders was now lifted at her words - it was as if a pardon for her own crimes had been lifted.''

''Yet, her words were calm. "What happened, Mido?" She questioned, folding her arms across her chest and leveling her gaze into her daughter's eyes. "We want to know everything."''

''"Nothing really happened." She replied. "I sparred with him, he lectured me, we resumed battle. We we're about even and then he decided to tell me that his plans are "something I will appreciate". So I decided to sit back and watch it all play out. And I told him I'd tell you lot to back off."''

''"Sparred...?" That made Tereya scoff. "Is that why you're coming in with the Artic behind you?"''

''"Isn't it obvious?" Ahatake asked. "She's reverted to her former personality. Only it seems to have been upped a notch."''

"I know that! That just means it wasn't just a simple spar!"

''"Just stop going after him." Midoriko said airily.''

''Sighing, Tereya closed her eyes and leaned back in her couch. "Is that it? I'd have expected something a bit more drastic than that..." She mused. "Oh, well..."''

''"He'll be dropping in soon to visit Aoi and Kyuui." Midoriko said, walking upstairs. "At least I assume it'll be soon."''

"Oh, it'll be soon all right..."

''Behind the cold aura of Midoriko's wake, a familiar white-haired man was leaning against the doorway, eyes squinted shut, and his mouth set in a wide smile. Tereya's head immediately snapped up at the sound of the voice, eyes widening ever so slightly as she recognized who it was."''

''"Kaa-san....Tou-san...it's been a while!" He greeted politely.''

''"Perhaps sooner than I thought." Midoriko said looking at her brother. "Welcome back, Onii-san."''

''Hands slid into his pockets, the man didn't look all too concerned about the fact that they were once former enemies. After all, the words did come from his trustworthy sister. "Thank you, Mido-chan." He replied.''

''"They've agreed to stop going after you." Midoriko said with a cold smile.

"I heard everything outside. Your cold aura provides good cover over my reiatsu, you know."

''"I'll remember that should you ever need my assistance." She replied and gestured upstairs. "I believe there are two people waiting to see you."''

"I hope I get a better reaction outta them then outta Tou-san and Kaa-san." Taiki said, motioning towards his two parents. His footsteps carried him, however, past Midoriko and up the stairs in swift motions. "Negative, positive, I don't care..."

''Midoriko laughed as she led him to a door where the sound of giggles could be heard. She opened the door to find Adela, Kyuui and Aoi in the room, Aoi hanging on her mother's back like an infant monkey, laughing up a storm. Kyuui was apparently in a panic, waving her arms in a vain attempt to get her sister to stop.

''It was Taiki that decided to speak, leaning against the doorway in the same manner as before. "Oh, dear. Am I missing all the fun?"''

''The room had gone silent at the sight of the silver haired man. Adela was the first to speak. "Hello dear." She said as if Taiki had merely returned from a long business trip. "How are you?"''

''He had expected as such, and her tone lifted his feelings a bit. "I've been better." He replied casually and amiably. "More importantly, how are you three?"''

''"We're fine." She replied pleasantly as Aoi detached herself from her mother and began walking slowly towards her father.''

''Despite possible danger, Taiki continued to lean and watch as Aoi approached. Behind her, Kyuui had watched the both of them with wary eyes, fingers on her mouth out of nervousness. Though, his smile faded into a more thoughtful curve. After all, she hadn't drawn her Zanpakuto immediately.''

Yet.

''Then, in a move that surprised everyone in the room, she put her arms around Taiki, tears pouring down her face. "I'm sorry.." She muttered, and everyone knew she was referring to the time she had tried to wipe Taiki off the face of the Earth.

''That made Taiki scoff lightly. "Stupid girl." He muttered, leaning over and wrapping his own arms around her gently. "What are you apologizing for? I'm the one that left you in the dark for so long. I'm the one that nearly ended your life. For that, I'm sorry."''

Aoi looked up, with a large smile on her face, but it appeared she could no longer speak.

That's when Kyuui stepped in.

''Before Taiki realized it, she had rushed forward and embraced the man in her own affectionate hug. "We missed you so much..." She whispered, her voice having cracked slightly. Tears were welling up in her own eyes.''

''Adela smiled at the scene. It seemed everyone was content.''

Right at that moment, husband and wife had matching faces...

End Flashback

Aoi sighed and lied down on the ceiling, only to be greeted by the sight of Kyuui's rather large breasts. She spluttered as her face turned a brilliant shade of magenta and she sat bolt upright again. "So what do you want to do?"

That was when Kyuui started outright laughing, at the sudden reaction. The laughter was so hard, tears came from her eyes in a minuscule amount. "Kya Ha ha ha ha--!" Was all she could manage to get out, holding her sides. When she finally did manage to calm down, however, she raised a finger to wipe a tear from her eye.

"Aoi... you are so innocent, it's screaming cute..."

Aoi's face was still slightly pink as she spoke. "I was just caught off guard." She said sheepishly. "It's really odd though. Your chest used to be so small and now it's huge. Just like Grandma's."

"R...really?" Slightly taken back, Kyuui looked down at herself in an innocent, clueless manner. "Now that you mention it, they do stick out a bit more, don't they?"

Aoi laughed. "Like you have no idea." She sighed and took in a deep breath. She peered over the edge of the ceiling and saw a red haired woman in black clothing approaching the building. "Hey Kyuui, there's someone walking up to the door."

"Nani?"

A questioning look filled the white-haired girl's eyes. She maneuvered herself over to get a better view. "It looks like Akiko-san a bit..." She noted.

"Yeah." Aoi replied, squinting her eyes to get a better view. "Should we go down to check?"

"Nah... we should probably wait 'till the rest of the family get acquainted with her..."

"Alright." Aoi replied. "If that's the case.." She tackled Kyuui to the ground and locked her lips with hers...

"!!"

Family Ties
The door bell rang rather loudly and repeatedly, causing Ahatake to jump, ruffling his newspaper. "Who the hell?? It's 9:00 in the morning!" The doorbell kept ringing and Ahatake sighed and got up and walked to the door. He opened it and standing outside we're two nearly identical women, both with long red hair and pale skin, but the shorter with brilliant green eyes and the taller with darker, blood-red eyes.

"Akiko...not to be rude but..who the hell is this?" He gestured to the red-eyed woman.

"My mother." Akiko replied grimly as they entered.

The woman spoke. "I'm Asami Yau." She said, staring coldly at Ahatake. "You look a lot like him."

"I'm sorry?"

"Kaemon." She replied shortly, as she walked around the room. "You look alot like him."

"He's my dad." Ahatake replied, bewildered.

"I see." She replied, giving Ahatake a cold, appraising look. "And where is your father?"

"Upstairs." Ahatake replied meekly and the woman strode past him.

"What was that about?" Ahatake turned to his sister.

"Mom isn't too happy with Dad.." She replied. "You know..for leaving her in favor of your mom."

Ahatake sighed and muttered in what sounded like insults in German under his breath.

In a chair, legs crossed in a ladylike fashion, and hands on her knees, Tereya had observed the whole thing seemingly in a formal manner. Yet, her expression was one of blinking curiosity. "Wonder what's gonna happen..."

Ahatake didn't answer, as he was still muttering rapidly and the only intelligible words were the names which he spoke in Japanese. But he needn't have answered anyway, as a shrill voice was soon heard and it rattled the very walls of the house.

"LEFT ME FOR A HUMAN-!"

The voice effectively stopped Ahatake's mutterings, and he was wide eyed.

"-WRING YOUR NECK-!"

Putting on a small smile, Tereya placed her hands behind her head and leaned by in her chair, obviously pleased by the sounds of anger coming from upstairs. "Ah...such music brings wonders to the ears..."

"-ANY IDEA HOW I'VE BEEN FEELING-??!?!?!"

Akiko shuddered. "Poor Dad."

"He'll be fine. Unless of course, he comes out bleeding like a shot gas tank...."

"With mom in there he probably will."

The shrill shrieking continued, though it seemed to have reached a pitch at which only dolphins would even be able to hear it. It seemed she had been wanting to let all this out for ages.

"Still..." A slight look of annoyance came across Tereya's face. She raised a pinky to stick into her earlobe. "That shrieking could be done without...it's a pain to my head."

Ahatake laughed as the noise subsided and footsteps could be heard as Asami walked down the stairs. She looked furious and her hair was bushy and sticking out in places.

"Super Saiyan..." Was the first thing Tereya thought of when she saw the scorned woman's appearance. But she remained silent, eyes closed in a rather comical manner.

The woman took out a brush and began to straighten her hair. Akiko spoke. "Um...mom...so...what happened?"

The woman did not answer immediately, first straightening her hair back into it's former style. "I just had to get that off my chest." She sighed. "The bastard. No one leaves me for a human."

"Uh...technically he was with my mother first." Ahatake said. In an instant he knew it would have been better just to keep quiet as the woman's fist collided with his gut.

Despite the fact that she wasn't too sympathetic towards the Kurosaki at that moment, Tereya decided to speak up. "Oi, oi... care to watch your temper? That's my husband you just punched the wind out of."

Asami turned her cold stare toward Tereya. But all she did was speak. "Be quiet girl." She turned on her heel and strode out of the house, leaving Ahatake to regain the breath that her blow had knocked out of him.

"Akiko...why did you bring her here?" He asked, breathing hard.

"She told me to." Akiko replied sheepishly. "I still have to do what my mother says."

"It makes me glad I don't have my parent's around." Tereya said dryly. "That makes two Midorikos that I know..."

"She makes Midoriko look sweet." Ahatake muttered, slumping down back into his chair, not even bothering to move the newspaper.

"I don't need to ask this..." Tereya turned her eyes towards her husband once more, an eyebrow raised. "But are you all right?"

"It'll take more than that to make me actually hurt." Ahatake replied. "She only knocked the win out of me. She could have done much worse if she had wanted to."

"Well, if your father survived, it can't really be that bad....can it?"

"Maybe not." Ahatake replied.

Asami was standing outside on a cliff that overlooked the rest of the area. The wind was blowing a gently breeze that caused her hair to whip around her. Though her face was blank it was obvious she was troubled. "That jerk..proposing in the middle of my yelling at him.."

"Hi!"

To her troubled ears, a cheerful voice found its way in. Then, its owner's head appeared over Asami's, a figure leaning over her. A smile and blue pupiless eyes, along with loose white hair obviously meant it was another female.

Asami's eyes widened as another girl with steel-gray and dark blue eyes appeared next to her. "Hi." She echoed her sister.

Caught off guard, Asami was speechless.

"We're the granddaughters of your half-son." Kyuui introduced herself and her sister. "Kyuui and Aoi. Sorry if we..." She cleared her throat a bit, raising herself up to a standing position. "...scared you a bit."

"No, I just didn't expect to see someone out here." She replied. "My name is Asami Yau. I suppose I am your great-great-aunt."

Kyuui chuckled a bit. "Well, great-great-aunt, I couldn't help but notice you were a bit troubled... that, and your plane-loud screaming..."

Asami chuckled a bit. These two seemed to amuse her more than the rest of the family. "I'm fine. Furious with your great-grandfather, but it's nothing you two need to trouble yourselves with."

"Of course it's something to trouble ourselves with."

Kyuui sat down beside her, legs stretched out and crossed. Her hands were on her lap, and she was sitting right beside Asami. "After all, you all the people we treasure the most. It's only natural for us to worry about a member."

"Still it's nothing you need to know about." She said as Aoi sat next to Kyuui and the sun began to set, bathing the scene in crimson light. "Not yet anyway. I'll tell you all later, maybe in a few days."

"I can live with that." Kyuui said in resolution, putting on a smile that would put her dad to shame.

Asami smiled as well, an uncommon action for her. "I assume we should go inside then?" She gestured towards the manor. "I will be staying with you all for awhile."

"We don't have to..." Kyuui said, smile fading a bit as she looked over at her great-great-aunt in question. "If you wish, we could stay out here for a little while..."

"Alright." She replied as she sat down next to the children. "We will need to go in before it is time to eat however."

"Right..."

"So since you have me out here," Asami smiled. "What is it you want to know?"

"To start off."

At the question, Kyuui squinted her eyes shut. "I, for one, would like to know more about you. Knowing names only wouldn't be much, would it?"

"There isn't much to know about me." She replied. "But I guess I'll let you know the basics. I was a former Shinigami of the Gotei 13. I eventaully just got tired of it, so I came to live in the World of the Living, where I resided in a Gigai. I eventually met Kaemon, and I fell in love with him. He left me however, shortly before I had Akiko."

"Hmph!" In a huffing manner, Kyuui folded her arms across her chest. "I hope he didn't leave just because you were having a kid!"

"If that were the case, he wouldn't have stayed with your grandfather's mother." Asami replied dryly.

"Then why'd he leave?" Kyuui leaned in curiously. "If he loved you so much, then why didn't he stay with you?"

"Maybe he couldn't handle your beauty." Aoi said, grinning and it forced Asami to laugh.

It was a joke that made Kyuui laugh heartily as well. "Oh, that's right!" She added. "Men act like putty when they're near a beautiful woman. Think he might have been a bit shy?" The simple thought of the rough and tumble great-grandfather acting in a shy manner made her laugh even harder.

Asami considered it and the very idea that Kaemon thought her more beautiful than that wench he ran off with was rather comforting. "That may very well be the reason. He proposed to me while I was yelling at him you know."

Kyuui stopped laughing when she realized her joking remark may have been accurate. She turned her head, a surprised expression in Asami's view. "Wouldn't that mean he was scared of you beating him to death?"

Her remark immediately made her body wince. "I'm sorry if I sound negative, but..."

"I don't think so." Asami replied. "I've never know Kaemon to fear anything."

"Then... I think he was trying to be honest with you..." Kyuui's negativity faded, the smile returning to her face once more. She tilted her head to the side. "Maybe you should go to him and hear him out yourself?"

Asami thought about it. The area was bathed now in the soothing light of the full moon. "I guess I should. But not until after I've had something to eat."

"Good idea..."

Seeing the night around them, Kyuui slowly stood up. "It's getting quite late, and the dinner's probably already started...." She noted, turning around and motioning for he sister to follow. "C'mon. They're probably wondering where we are by now..."

Aoi kept pace with her sister and aunt, as the smell of food wafted from the inside of the house. To Aoi's nose, it smelt European, whatever it was.

Around the corner, Tereya had finished setting the last plate down before sitting herself in one of the chairs in the dining room. "You know, for once, the fact that we have a manor for a house has proven to be not so useless after all..." She said, an unlit cigarette in her mouth.

Ahatake laughed and then sighed. "We're about to eat Tereya, put that thing away." He gestured to the cigarette.

"What? It's unlit, anyway..."

"Like I give a damn, you're not having cigarettes at the table." Ahatake sighed. "Now I know what you need for Christmas. A therapist few thousand volts of electricity every time you try to have a smoke."

"Tch..." Tereya closed her eyes and raised her head slightly in a slightly proud manner. "You shouldn't speak that way to the person who slaves over a hot stove, Mr. Prone-to-Diabetes."

Ahatake ignored her and looked around the table. To the unsuspecting person it would look as if they were having guests from many different countries paying a visit. There was food from Europe, such as Fish 'n Chips and Yorkshire Pudding, then American food like fries and hamburger's, Chinese Chow Mein and Orange Chicken, and then food from Japan like bowls of rice, ramen noodles, Tamago kake gohan, and Manjū among other things. It seemed as if Tereya had really outdone herself.

The door opened and Asami entered, followed by the twins.

Immediately, Tereya turned her head to the side and spit the cigarette out, landing it straight into the nearest trash can. "Welcome to the Kurosaki buffet..." She said in a sophisticated but joking manner, spreading her arms out welcomingly towards the food. "Please enjoy yourselves..."

"Oh--!" Kyuui's eyes immediately fell upon the food. "Wow, Baa-san! You outdid yourself!!!"

Aoi's eyes widened at the look and smell of the food. "Thanks Grandma." She said walking around the table.

"Don't mention it." Tereya replied modestly. "I felt it was a good day to cook it..." She looked around. "So, everyone here?"

Asami strode around the table, looking at the food. "Where's Kaemon?"

"Upstairs, having Akiko fix his broken arm." Ahatake replied.

"Ah..." Tereya once again turned her attention to the food before her and her family. "You think we should wait for 'im?"

"No need." Kaemon's deep voice sounded as he descended the steps followed by Akiko. He was flexing his arm. It seemed to be as good as new.

Tereya smirked. "Good to see ya, old man. Now, if you'd be so kind to sit down, we can start gettin' rid o' all this..."

Kaemon smiled and took a seat, surprisingly enough, next to Asami. Everyone began reaching for food and chatter instantly filled the room.

"So, grandma..." Was Kyuui's first words of the conversation. "How'd you learn to make all this. It's quite..."

"Foreign?" Tereya finished. "Yeah...it pays to have a brother with a lot of knowledge 'bout culture. Considerably, I only do this once or twice a year to keep the tradition from getting old..."

Aoi grinned. "Well it's really good Grandma." The only Kurosaki family member's absent from this happy gathering were Midoriko, Taiki, and Adela, but this didn't seem to bother anyone.

"A compliment? Coming from you? I'd say that's quite an accomplishment for me..." Tereya commented.

"Better believe it." Ahatake chuckled, eating roast potatoes.

Tereya raised a hand to clear her throat, eyes drifting to the mother of Akiko. "Asami. Might I ask what the reason was of you coming here? Besides the obvious husband beating..."

"That was the reason." She replied. after swallowing a bit of rice.

"And yet you're staying for.... how long?"

"I'm not sure." She replied in a tone that plainly told everyone she was not leaving soon.

The evasion made Tereya roll her eyes, but she relented. "All right, then. Do I have to start bringing First Aid kits now?"

"It'd be advisable." The woman replied again after swallowing bits of food.