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Chapter 1: The Imposters

“Kisa?” a voice said from within the distance, breaking the thoughts of a young girl. The girl awoke from her dream and her soft blue eyes lifted to meet the green eyes of a fellow friend. The girl in front of her had short bouncy dirty-blonde hair and she wore the school uniform.

“Katie?” Kisa replied, dumbfounded of why she was in her class. It was first period after all and Katie didn’t have this class until fourth. “What are you doing in Geometry? Don’t you have this class for fourth period?” Katie laughed in Kisa’s face, knowing how clueless her friend was.

“It is fourth period! You’ve been here for like three hours!” hollered Katie. Kisa’s face began to liven up as shock and surprise entered her fresh mind.

“It can't be!!! That's impossible!” Kisa screamed with shock. Had she fallen asleep again? Where did the time go?

“Kisa, may I have a word with you?” Mrs. Woodskin announced from her front desk, located next to the entrance of the room. The teacher looked infuriated but sat stiffly in her little muddy metal desk. She was organizing some papers but kept her eyes fixed on Kisa. Kisa began to sweat in fear.

“Um…,” she stalled. “…S-sure,” Kisa slowly walked over to her teacher’s desk. Was what she was dreaming just a dream? It couldn’t have been. It seemed so…so very real.

When she reached her destination, which was only a few paces away, she was showered with unnecessary questions that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Teachers were always so nosy in their students’ school lives and at-home lives. They had no business to butt in their large and hairy noses. All she really focused on, during her interview, was a good excuse on why she was late to her fourth period. She couldn’t ditch any longer or else, she would be in a massive heap of trouble. Also, she wanted to get some grub from the party her fourth period was hosting. Why did she have to sleep on this very day?

“Are you listening?” Mrs. Woodskin deafeningly asked Kisa. Kisa felt a strong shudder roll slowly down her back, which was rather painful to experience.

“Y-yes, Mrs. Woodskin, I am. Thank you Mrs. Woodskin for making me realize…whatever I did wrong,” Kisa automatically answered and ended with an annoyed sigh.

“You can go to your fourth period now…but I’m not going to give you a late pass,” the evil teacher informed. Kisa held her fist. This teacher was so evil to her. She always did this to her so that she would get a detention. At least, she could now escape from Mrs. Woodskin’s stupidity.

Kisa went right down to her locker. She had decided not to go to fourth period, even though she was rather hungry. The food was probably all gone by now. There was no need to head all the way down to the basement to her fourth hour and then head the all the way back to the top of the building to exit the school building. Also, she did not want to endure anymore embarrassments today. She struggled with the lock, securing her locker, for a bit. Finally, it opened and she was able to get her backpack. This would be Kisa’s first time, consciously, ditching school. It wasn’t ditching, really, it was just going home. Other so-called “regular ditchers” would have gone to an arcade store or to somewhere that needed adult supervision. She had no where else to go, really. Basically, the streets were her home. She had run away from the torturous house of where her murderous mom and photos of her dead father lived. He had died through an enormous fire that devoured their previous home. Her mom kept blaming her for burning the house down and causing her lover’s death, even though it wasn’t her fault. It was the mysterious person in black who had burned all her possessions. All her personal photos of her dad was now with her wicked mother. She couldn’t go back, not now since she had already left home. Her mother haven’t even tried to find her yet. Kisa even wondered if her mother was going to try and find her. Memories of her kindhearted father entered her head as she closed her blue locker. He wasn’t like her mother. It was odd how they even married. They did not match in any way or form. He was shy and positive while she was pessimistic and negative. The memories were too much for Kisa to bear. She pushed them aside, having to use great force, and began walking out of the school building. She missed her father too much. After his death, everything had changed. Changed for the worse.

As Kisa walked away from her locker, a sudden chill of excitement and terror ran down her spine. Her instincts sharpened and told her that something bad was going to happen and cause her injury. Kisa tried ignoring this feeling, the same one she had that night when the stranger broke into her room and burned her house down. Maybe it was just nothing and she was worrying over a fluke feeling. She walked to the front entrance.

There was a policeman at the front entrance. It was a police officer who had helped Kisa go through her emotional rollercoaster after the fire. He was also a daily guard that circled around the school to break up fights and find people who were ditching. Kisa began to perspire because she had heard of what he did to ditchers. She became more uncomfortable as she took one more step, closer to him and the doors. She tried to act invisible and maybe turn the corner. She would escape through the back doors. To her dismay, he had already noticed, even before she was at the corner. For some odd reason, instead of trying to arrest her, he was happily waving to her. He cheeks were pink and his hand waved her over.

“Your parents are here to pick you up,” he excitedly shouted out to her. My….Parents??!!! During his help after the fire, she had fooled the policemen of believing her of being an orphan. She was going to run away long before the fire and didn’t expect to quit just because it had happened. Through his limited knowledge he had gained, he was excited to find out that her long forgotten parents actually came to get her. He had only hoped for Kisa’s happiness.

“Kisa, my dear daughter, hurry up! Your father and I are waiting for you,” This was the voice of her mother, the one she hated all her life, the one she did not want to meet or ever see again. She could still see the burn mark on her mother’s face, located on her right cheek. How her mother hated her for “burning down the house”. Her mother complained to everyone, not just to her that was just to kill her mother’s last speck of joy. Her mother daily reminded Kisa, when they were still under the same roof, of her unwanted pregnancy and that Kisa was always ruining her life. All her problems were blamed onto Kisa. This made the unexpected appearance of her mother quite suspicious and daunting.

Kisa observed the so-called parents of hers with more force, capturing odd details. Sure enough, these weren’t her parents. The man beside her “mother”, who was called her “father”, was supposed to be dead. Those fakes probably didn’t know that.

“I am not your ‘dear daughter’,”

It was something Princess Mitsuki had said in her dream. Right now, it seemed to be a warning to Kisa. Run away, it seemed to imply. They will hurt you, run away. With that, she sprinted away from them, heading to the opposite direction. Her heart pounded as she was trying to escape from them. This faintly reminded her of the stranger who tried to burn and kill her that frightful night. She panicked but knew that she would be in grave danger if she didn’t escape. She aimed to escape from the back school doors. Kisa remembered that this event was the last time she saw the policeman. After encountering these fakes, he was never seen again.

“Why are you running away from us, again? Don’t you love your parents, Kisa?” the woman, or her fake mother, said suddenly appearing before her eyes from within the cramped hallways. The woman was in front of her and Kisa abruptly stopped in mid step. She attempted to turn around but the man, or her fake father, also mysteriously emerged out of nowhere from behind.

“You are not my parents!” Kisa shouted at them. They watched her with crazed possessed eyes. Saying those words truly showed the nature of the fake parents. They possessed a dark heart. Darker than her mother’s.

“What do you mean? I’m your mother, Kisa dear,” the woman said with wide, frightening eyes.

“No, you’re not! Get away from me!” Kisa screamed. She fled to another hallway, empty of students and teachers. She ran, breathing heavily, as if it was for her life. But they were always behind her, on her tail. They appeared magically everywhere, even though they never seemed to run after her at all. In desperation, she finally tried calling for help, since no one was in the hallways. It seemed as if she was trapped in a maze, with no back door to break out of. Something abnormal was happening to her and she didn’t like it.

“Help!! Somebody, please help me!” Kisa screamed wildly, exhausted on the floor. She was trapped in the twisted cat-and-mouse game. One that seemed to like her doom.

“No one is here to help you,” the woman said, magically appearing at the end of the hallway. She found the man blocking the other side also. She was cornered. No more places to run Also, behind her the man stood also at the end of the other end of the hallway. She found herself right in the middle of the two kidnappers. Panicking, she searched for an escape from them. She went to the closest door by her. She pushed herself up with the aid of pulling on the door handle. She tried opening it but for some reason, the door was locked and it wouldn’t budge. Through the small foggy window, she saw the classroom inside, continuing their daily classroom routine without noticing the yells or bangs from Kisa outside the door. She banged and hit the door as hard as she could but to no avail. The students in there seemed deaf to her noise. She then noticed a familiar dirty-blonde headed girl. It was Katie.

“Katie! Katie, help me!” Kisa cried as hard as she could, pressing against the window desperately. The man and woman began to walk closer and closer to her. They were going to capture her. She pounded on the window. Her hand started to hurt after several fierce punches to the door. But Katie seemed to not notice, as the rest of the class did. “KATIE!”

“Did…you guys hear anything?” Katie asked, looking around the classroom. “I thought someone called my name,” The girls around her desk denied hearing anything.

“No, did you?” they asked one another. Katie swore she had heard something from outside the door but the fellow classmates just said she was faking it. She stared suspiciously at the door into the window that showed bits of the hallway. Kisa saw Katie looking her way.

“Katie! Katie, help me! Help me, I’m being chased! Katie!” Kisa cried. Katie saw nothing at the window. She didn’t see Kisa’s desperate face outside, frantically looking for help. Slowly, she turned around with a puzzled look. She began to believe that she was just hearing things. Kisa’s heart dropped. “No, Katie. Don’t turn around, help me!” She didn’t realize this at first, but the school around her began to dissolve into nothingness.

“What are you doing, Kisa? Why won’t you just come along nicely, and we’ll take you back home. How does that sound?” The man cooed. Tears stung Kisa’s eyes as she dropped down onto her knees leaving a streak of blood down the window. She held her hand to her face and examined it. Kisa started to panic. It wasn’t because her hand was bated in blood, but because her hand was becoming transparent, see-through. What’s happening to me? She asked herself. She felt herself becoming weak and tired. Her strength was draining away fast, and so was her consciousness. She tried to move her finger and failed. It was like she was frozen in time.

A blur of color zipped past her face. Her faded vision couldn’t make out who it was, but she could tell by the way the person stood it was a male. She could hear his voice, but it was distant.

“Princess Mi—I mean, Kisa, you can’t fall asleep! You have to stay awake!” He told her, but she could barely hear him. He quickly scribbled something on a square of paper in his hand and smacked it onto Kisa’s forehead. Warmth spread through her frozen state, and her finger twitched. The so called “Parents” stopped in their tracks and stared at the boy, awed that he dared to oppose them.

“Who are you to stop us, little boy?” The woman snarled. The boy stood up, and looked her directly in the face. Kisa, slowly regaining her vision, saw the boy who stood in front of her. She could see the back of his head which was covered in short and layered brunette hair. As her vision brightened, she could make out that he was wearing the student uniform for the males. Though it was in the back of her mind, she wondered: Why could…he see me then, if Katie didn’t?

“The name's Ken Ito. I saw a damsel in distress and thought that she needed my help,” He replied.

“My, my, my… A trouble maker, aren't we?” she said. Ken showed a playful smile. He seemed confident that he could defend himself from the two villains that stood before him. “I wonder why you can see through our spell. Normally, human beings can’t see our kind while under invisibility magic.”

“Well I guess I’m not human, and I guessing that you guys aren’t either…,” Ken said. The woman chuckled.

“And what gives you the right to butt into our business this fine evening, little boy?” questioned the woman. Ken shrugged.

“I tried to run away from your awful smell but I found out that it was everywhere… So, being that you smell and all, could you, like, scram? You smell so much it makes my head hurts,”

“What an annoying little brat we have here…,” the man frowned disapprovingly. Ken gave him two thumbs up. “I hate annoying little brats,” he said frankly. Ken smiled, wickedly happy.

Ken coughed as the man stepped closer. “You reek, even more so than that hag over there. I guess I’ll just have to make you leave, since apparently you don’t want to,”

“I hate cocky, annoying little brats even more. Anna?” He looked over to the woman. She gave a slight nod.

“Nobody calls me a hag and gets away with it. Be thankful, boy. You’re lucky it was me and Henry. Anybody else and you’d be in the torture room back at the castle by now,”

"Castle? What century did you come from? No wonder you guys reek of dead flesh. You're not zombies are you?" Ken asked, trying to wave their stench to another area. He acted like it was killing him, being opened to their horrible smell. Anna and Henry whipped off their coats simultaneously, and with it, their disguise of Kisa’s parents. "Oh, I guess you're not zombies, just ugly people trying to look decent with the disguises," Ken grinned again.

Before they took off their disguise, they looked like an old married couple. The woman had her black hair tied back into a bun. Her face looked like Kisa’s face, only wrinkled. The man was round with a hunched back and with dark hair, a dark face and a solemn gaze. Now, two total strangers stood in their place.

The woman, Anna, now had long, silky crimson hair. Her eyes were emerald green, and she was as tall as Ken. She wore a long red over coat with black faux feathers at the cuffs and the collar, and on the inside she wore a bloddy red dress covered in sparkles that went to her ankles and was slit up to her knee. Ruby accessories hung on her neck and her ears. Even her nails were painted red. She wore tall black stilettos and black see through stockings.

The man transformed into Henry, a noble looking man with dark amber, combed back hair and a fine beard to go with it. He wore a flowing brown fur cloak with golden trimmings made of real gold. The hood resembled that of a grizzly bear’s head. The lights glared off of his polished black boots. His tan shirt hid under a gold chain, and on his belt, there was a long, sheathed, slim black sword about two thirds Kisa’s height.

“Wow. What a transformation,” Ken complimented. “But seriously, Henry. You should lay off those cookies,”

“I guess we should kill you now since you now know who we are,” Anna said in a playful, yet menacing, voice.

“We always show ourselves to our victims before we dispose of them, and I’m not sorry to say that you’ve just become one of our victims,” Henry smiled sickly. Ken laughed.

“Why would you guys show your butt-ugly faces to people that won’t live top see another day? What’s the fun in that? Hasn’t occurred to you small mouse brains that you might not have killed one of you victims and they are now stalking you, just waiting for the right moment to kill your sorry butts?”

“Hasn’t it occurred to your stupid self that you talk too much and haven’t even seen Anna move?” Henry hinted.

“What?” Ken glanced over to where Anna had been standing. She had disappeared.

“That’s too bad. She’s going to miss out. She probably ran away, tail between her legs. Guess I scared her away, huh??”

“Oh, she’s not missing much… HAAAAAAH!!” Henry charged at Ken, whipping out his midnight black blade. Ken dashed to the right and pulled out two pieces of paper and wrote something on them with his inky brush. The sheets of paper glowed yellow. Ken launched himself at Henry. Henry put up his sword to block, and Ken slammed into it, cutting himself badly. He breathed heavily on the floor as he bled.

“Now that wasn’t so bad. Now I’ll just finish you off like so and—what the…?”

After Henry stuck his sword into Ken’s neck, he was squirted with black blood. Then, Ken began to shrivel up, spilling black blood everywhere, melting into the tiled floor. On the ground, there lay ink and one of the sheets of paper. Henry bent down to pick it up. He began to read it. It said:



After reading it twice, he crumpled up the paper and stood up to look for Ken, but little did he know, Ken had been right in front of his face. Henry turned around, searching for Ken. Then, Henry heard a voice.

“Shadow Hands,” said Ken. The spilled ink wrapped around Henry’s legs that resembled arms.

“What the--!!?? What is this!?”

“My Shadow Hands technique. Do you like it?” The Ken clone grinned evilly as he rose through the ink. “I figured that would happen if I charged at you. Oh, and guess what? I got a present for you. I hope you like it,” He stuck a piece of paper in front of Henry’s eyes and broke all of his magic spells. The Ken clone halfway melted, and then exploded. All the ink rose into the air in little globes and circled the real Ken and got vacuumed into his skin.

“5…4…3…2…,”

Henry snatched the piece of paper off of his face and couldn’t help but read it. It said:



“1…Melt!” Ken shouted. The paper tuned red hot and instantly liquefied onto Henry’s hand, burning him. Henry yelped in pain and flicked his hand, flinging all the liquid paper off of it. It hardened and flew toward Ken, the ink un-gluing themselves from the paper and sinking back into his skin.

“You little….,” Henry hissed between clenched teeth. Veins popped up on the side of his forehead as a corner of his mouth slightly turned up into a cynical smile. “You’ll regret that, Mr. Ito,”

“You’ll regret that, Mr. Ito, “ Ken mocked. “Wow. I’m so scared!!”

“YAAAAARGH!!!” Henry roared and charged at Ken, sword pointing at Ken’s heart. Ken did some quick strokes on two slips of paper that read:




Ken then leaped away from Henry, attaching one slip of paper to each heel and stayed in the air. Henry twisted around and began stabbing at the soles of Ken’s feet.

“B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!!” Ken rolled his eyes. Henry had his back on the wall and was breathing haggardly. “Was that it? That wasn’t much of a fight,” Henry clenched his teeth and pushed himself off of the wall and stumbled to the center of the hallway and continued fighting.

Ken yawned. “That was so boring I’m sleepy,” He rubbed his eyes. A deep, chortle came out of Henry’s throat.

“Are you ready now, Anna?” he asked loudly, looking past Ken.

“Ready!” Anna shouted back. She appeared out of no where at the other end of the hallway. Cold winter air began to filter in through the vents.

Chills crawled over Ken’s back as the cold stinging air stung him. “What, are you trying to freeze me to death now? What a brilliant comeback,” Sarcasm tinged his voice.

Henry laughed. “No, no. That’s not even half of it. Anna’s viruses are spreading everywhere in the air as we speak. Once you breathe it in, Anna can take control of your body and kill you from the inside out. Good thing that I’m immune to it, otherwise, we’ll both be dead in an instant,”

Kisa’s eyes widened, despite her paralyzed stated. Her finger began to twitch in panic. Kisa began moving feebly, fearing her death because she wasn’t able to defend herself. Ken noticed this out of the corner of his eye. In his other, he saw Henry’s sword glow a sickening green.

“Not only can Anna’s virus kill you, I can cut you into little pieces with my sword,” Henry lunged viciously at Ken, his sword pointed straight at Ken’s heart. Ken ducked and rolled to his left and slid towards Kisa, slapping some ink on his paper and then plastering it onto her head. It said: “Wind” A breeze came out of nowhere, encircling Kisa.

“You forgot someone: YOURSELF!” Henry slashed at Ken, over and over, Ken barely having the time to write a wind talisman for himself. Ken managed to kick Henry in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Ken then disappeared again.

“Why you-- Come out here and face me like a man, you coward!”

Invisible Ken noticed that Kisa’s talisman was weakening, so he tried to slide past Henry to reinforce the slip of paper on Kisa’s head, but as he moved, the slip of paper that made him invisible flew off. Henry then slashed at his arm, the one that held his wind spell. Ken became unbalanced due to pain, and Henry grabbed Ken’s throat. He lifted him up in the air, Ken struggling to get away. Henry then flung him to the end of the hallway. Ken weakly got up, feeling a chill in his bones. “Kisa, hold your breath!” He shouted to her, wincing as he noticed he had broken two of his ribs. He instantly stopped breathing. Kisa did too after taking in a breath of air just before the wind spell diminished.

“It’s useless you know. I’ve already sliced you with my sword. You will die anyways. The virus can still get into you through an open wound.” From somewhere, Anna snapped and Ken’s open wound exploded with blood.

Ken cried in pain. Anna and Henry’s voices combined in laughter. Ken used the blood from his hand to write some more talismans. They read: “Cleanse”, “Heal”, and “Warmth”.

He stuck them all to Kisa. “Th-thank you…” Kisa stammered. Her body flooded with warmth. In front of her eyes, she was awed when she saw her skin folding over itself and the blood sucking back into her skin. With the last of his strength, he wrote one last talisman.

“Teleport,” He said weakly. With a flash, they were gone.


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“Blast!” Henry cried. He hit the wall with his gloved fist and fine dust slipped out of the cracks he had made. “We lost them.”

“There’s always next time, Henry,” Anna soothed. “And the next time, we will kill them,” Anna’s features twisted into an evil smile.

“Yes. Next time,” Henry’s laugh echoed through the empty hall as he and Anna faded into nothingness.

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Blinding light flashed before Kisa’s eyes. She landed with a thud and felt something scratching her arms and warm and wet on her face. She opened her eyes slowly, darkness hurting her eyes. Everything seemed tinted in read for a bit, and then her eyes adjusted. She was staring right as the face of a large dog. He panted, and happily slurped Kisa awake. It was dark out, perhaps seven or eight o’clock. Kisa gingerly got out of the bush that had her captive. She was happy that it hadn’t snowed yet, or else she might have frozen to death. Then she realized it would have been impossible, because she still had the “Warmth” talisman on, and realized that what happened was NOT just a dream.

“Ken! Where are you?” Kisa shouted. Silence answered her. The dog sniffed at her uniform and sneezed. She tore off a random talisman, “Cleanse”. She gave it to the dog to sniff. “Can you find him doggy?” She asked sweetly. The dog barked happily after sniffing it all over and ran off. Kisa struggled to follow, numbness slowing her bones. Finally, the dog stopped and barked. Kisa heard Ken’s heaving breathing before she saw him, and realized he looked horrible. Kisa ripped off the remaining two slips of paper and put them onto Ken, hoping that they still had magic left in them. She lifted him onto he back, hooked his arms around her neck and put her hands under his thighs and walked off towards home, the dog barking after them.