Damian peeled his eyes open, he was instantly flooded with bright white light and he closed his eyes. Damian again opened his eyes and was able to see without feeling like someone was flashing an industrial flashlight in his eye. Damian looked around him, he was in a white room, on a white bed and everything smelled beautiful. Wait...am I in heaven?, Damian wondered, then two girls and a boy walked into the room. Okay not heaven, Damian deduced, after all, Akiko, Gianna and Raijin stood before him. The only other logical explanation, as if the initial conclusion was not absurd, is that Damian was in a hospital which would explain a rhythmic beep that Damian had somehow ignored.

Gianna’s eyes were running like the Amazon river as she lunged towards Damian to hug him. Akiko instantaneously appeared in Gianna’s path and as soon as Akiko made physical contact with Gianna, they popped back to the entrance.

“The doctors just told us to be careful, Gianna, what part of, ‘be careful’, did you think meant to lunge at Damian?” Akiko hissed

“That’s my brother, who almost died, let me hug him jeez.” Gianna teasingly retroted

“I would kind of appreciate not getting hit by a freight train right now, my body feels like it went through hell. I feel so dang sore, not moving right now feels like the best idea since sliced bread.” Damian groaned.

“Who are you calling a freight train sir? So you are calling me fat now. Maybe I should teach you how to respect your older sister.”

Damian laughed and instantly regretted as he winced from a sharp pain in his chest. Damian looked at Raijin and then aked,

“So buddy I know this may be awkward, but you could at least introduce yourself.”

“The name’s Raijin, glad to be able to meet you in person. It was bound to happen where I needed to meet you, I am glad to be able to meet the brother of the girl I am courting,” Raijin said

Damian at the time had reached for a cup of water and he had taken a good sip of it, now he had spat the water out, choking on some of the water that had gone the wrong way. Damian took a few seconds to recover and then he shook his head and looked at his sister in mock indignation,

“So when was I going to find out about this,” Damian pointed his fingers between the couple, “So what, one day you were going to come and say, ‘Hey I am getting married and that is how I was gonna find out, how could you do this to me, your best brother?”

Gianna rolled her eyes,

“Damian firstly, you are my only brother, secondly I doubt I was going to wait that long,” Damian wiped his eyes, “Wait are you crying?”

“No, what makes you think that?”

“You have liquid in your eye and your breathing is quickening,”

“There is an unidentified and foreign substance in my eye that is blurring everything, that is all, you must be absolutely crazy to think that I, Damian Tesla, am crying.”

As Damian finished, he started crying,

“I never thought there would be a day when a guy would say, ‘Hey she is pretty cute and nice, I want her,’ I was honestly worried about the mental health of the boys in our school, who could refuse my sister, a true goddess among us lowly and mortal humans,” Damian teased.

In response to this, everyone in the room started freely laughing, Damian in exception, who fought the urge to, but ultimately failed. After the laugh Damian sobered up, looked at Raijin and said in a honeyed voice and fake smile plastered on that sent a chill down everyone’s spine,

“Break my sister’s heart and I will give you hell, got it buddy? I will say this once, so you cannot say I never warned you, cheating is a death sentence, so if you feel a bit suicidal one day or want some extra excitement in your life, go right ahead and I will ensure that everything ends quickly. Don’t do anything shady or stupid and you will be able to live a long life. I wish you two a happy relationship.”

Damian did not realise it but he was a considerable obstacle that hindered Gianna from getting a boyfriend for years. Actually girls feared Damian’s sister with the fact that she was a telepath and was a scary person when defending her brother. They ironically hindered the other from relationships, not even being aware of it. After what Damian sayed, Raijin nodded and then retorted,

“Same goes for if you decide to go for my sister,”

Damian chuckled,

“I can assure you there isn’t a high chance of that, Raijin.”

As the words left Damian’s mouth, he instantly regretted them. Akiko turned toward him, put her hands on her hips and through gritted teeth inquired,

“What is that supposed to mean, Damian?”

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“Well um...it means what it means. You know what I mean.”

“No, Damian, I do not have the slightest idea what you mean, so please, explain. I got time.”

Damian cleared his throat,

“Well um I ride solo and intend to do so for a little while to avoid problems...that’s all. Us dating each other would be an awkward situation, with our older siblings already doing so. That is more problems than I wanna bargain for, to be honest”

Akiko nodded her head and gave a barely audible ‘hmph’ as she walked out the room with her brother in tow, who was trying to calm her down.

“You are a real idiot, you know that? How can you say things like that and still have the audacity to wonder, ‘Why am I still single?’” Gianna said with annoyance riddled in each syllable

Damian shrugged his shoulders, Akiko did ask Damian a question and he answered it as truthfully as he could, it was not his fault if someone got butt hurt because of it. Damian sighed,

“Let’s not keep dodging the real topic that is on our mind.”

Gianna simply responded with a few minutes of painful sobs and Damian sat in his bed trying to comfort his sister. There was a small period of silence which was broken by Gianna,

“So Damian, what was dad’s power like?”

Damian thought for a few seconds and then spoke,

“It felt like I was burning from the inside but for some reason I relished it; it was enjoyable.”

Gianna raised an eyebrow,

“I don’t remember my sibling being a masochist.”

“I am no masochist, Gianna. Anyways, there was so much power flowing through me and I felt like I was being slowly torn apart. I was experiencing conflicting emotions at the same time, love and hate, anger and calm, it was weird.”

Gianna had already picked up on that and therefore, she was not surprised. Gianna told her brother goodbye and Damian was left alone with his thoughts. Damian took a week to recover, during this time Damian, reminisced of all the memories he had accumulated with his parents. Each day Damian’s sister would visit bringing him food she cooked. The day after Damian was released from the hospital, he had to attend the funeral of his mother and father.

The funeral had gone exactly the way that Damian’s parents had wanted, simple and small. The funeral took place at where the house was and Mr. and Mrs Tesla were buried where the house had stood. Damian walked through the forest of burnt trees that had surrounded their house. Damian finally reached the area of the forest that was not basically an oversized assortment of charcoal. He walked into it and kept going straight until he came into a clearing. There sat a large collection of different kinds of cherry blossom trees, this was a place that Damian and his father always visited together.

There was one in particular that he was always drawn to, it was a shidarezakura. At the moment it was dropping several flowers, Damian approached it and caressed the bark. A single rebellious tear was shed despite Damian’s efforts to hold it. Damian fell to the ground, suddenly breaking down in tears. Then a strange voice spoke,

“Hey Damian how’s it going?”

Damian turned and saw the flowers of the shidarezakura were glowing. The flowers that had fallen to the ground started to rise and before Damian, was his father’s form. Damian was on his knees speechless, all he could give was a teary smile. His father gestured around him,

“Neat trick ain’t it? I had a friend who was an agro-kinetic do it for me. This message was created to activate when your DNA is detected and when you are in heightened sense of stress via your hormones. The fact that this tree, with its message, still stands and I haven’t cut it down, probably means I am dead and never got to explain enough for this message to be nugatory, must suck huh?”

Damian nodded as if it would be acknowledged that he did so. Damian’s father continued,

“I am kind of lost as to what to say so please excuse me if I say random things. I wanna tell you that I am proud of and love you...but you already know that. Um, take care of your sister, and if she ever gets a boyfriend, give him hell for me.”

Damian laughed, shook his head and responded,

“That should go unsaid dad.”

“Uh let’s see...continue playing your piano and violin for me, it may be painful because of the memories, but trust me when I tell you, music is a good source of comfort. Oh and stay out of trouble!”

Damian rolled his eyes,

“Like that’s gonna happen.”

“You are probably saying right now, ‘Like that’s gonna happen,’ you little troublemaker. Your mother insists you got it from me...but between you and me that’s her influence on you. I don’t wanna leave you without one last gift, so I will give you a little something. The name of your secondary ability is, the Zone. Has a nice ring to it, don't it? Oh and that awesome clothing that you get will be called Jigoku No Manto. You always told me how awesome things sound in Japanese so I took a crack at it. Jigoku No Manto is supposed to mean, Hell Cloak, but uh it could be wrong cause I used Google translate. Still pretty awesome though, and so I beg you, hold your applause, Damian.”

Damian responded with a roll of his eyes, a chuckle and some sarcastic applause. Mr. Tesla cleared his throat,

“I guess this is farewell for now. I mean you have my full permission to access my notes, just dig a few feet to the left of the shidarezakura and you should find a digital diary wrapped. You can hear more of me there and it has my message recorded on it too, just in case you wanna hear my soothing voice; it is a paragon to all masculine voices, after all. Oh, and I have one little piece of advice, the world is not as black and white as you may think, so you need to figure out where you draw the line, that’s all.”

The message crackled and the leaves flickered. Just as Damian stood, the flowers fell, its glow dying at the same time. As for the flowers on the tree itself, they still glowed and as they fell, they flickered then stopped glowing. Damian rushed out the forest occasionally tripping on some roots. Damian found his sister where their parents were buried. Gianna had her back to Damian and as she turned, he saw a tear roll down her cheeks but she wore a smile on her face.

Their parents had both left messages for their children. Damian described what had happened with the cherry blossom tree, although he did not mention what was said and Gianna described how she got her message also. Their mother had put a telepathic message within Gianna’s mind that would be triggered after her death. It was a last father-son and mother-daughter talk. Damian went back to the clearing within the forest and just sat there staring at the glowing cherry blossom tree. Damian stayed there until the evening came, reminiscing his favourite memories of his Parents.